Piper Lynn

"We are a group" is how I used to start explaining Piper's Purpose. I would at some point in the conversation also share "no we don't have plans to become an official non- profit". Fast forward to today, the conversation has changed. "Piper's Purpose is a non profit, 501 (c) 3, with a board of directors, big dreams, great ideas and a targeted mission that includes nurturing connection and providing bereavement education in the pregnancy and infant loss community".  A little over two years ago, a little girl's heart stopped beating. She died. Her family began experiencing grief. Her purpose began. Piper's Purpose began to help me, Piper's Mom. Today I hope her purpose will continue to support others on their healing journey, starting with medical professionals.  Piper's voice is silent, but strong and I am honored to have learned from her and give her short life a lifelong purpose. 

Depression is wondering how you can do so much while being so sad and disconnected from yourself. It's wondering why you can be so many wonderful things to so many people and feel like nothing for yourself.  It's wanting so much for everyone else to get you, to get the "it" that haunts you, but knowing no one can say anything to make a difference. It's feeling so deeply it hurts. Managing depression is not an end goal. There is never an "end", there is only a path.  Depression is hating yourself, feeling alone in a crowded room, wondering why you can't just feel the way everyone else does. It's living in your 16 year old brain of self centered thoughts and risky behavior.  Depression makes you wonder and wonder. Depression makes you acutely aware that there isn't a cure to the ugly thoughts that haunt you. It robs you of joy, connection and clarity.  Depression is a demon, that only an exorcism can extract. There has to be an end, but at the ...

I am acutely aware that my emotion and fragility about my Piper dying is not as deep and blinding as it once was. And yet, I still have moments where the hurt makes itself know, usually followed by "what if?", "I wish", guilt and sometimes anger (still). Her existence is part of this beautiful world, her spirit, her purpose, her selfless - love. But even this month, two years after she died- it still feels like that isn't enough. I am brought back to her when I connect with the work I am doing with Piper's Purpose. But when I feel like what I am providing or saying is not enough to the ones who just lost their baby, can't conceive, have experienced added trauma at the hands of medical professionals, I am left with new sadness and dissapointment. Just lingering in my being. I want to do more, say the right thing that helps, carry a little of the burden for them... but that doesn't seem possible, and I know I can't stop someone from experiencing th...

I wrote something beautiful about you.  It made me feel alive and validated... in the mushy, kid- like way. Where for a moment the wisdom of age and innocence of new love met. Magical feelings that sprinkle like fairy dust.  It represented all that we had accomplished together. I felt love, in love and I wanted you. Today what I write to you is broken and bruised. It's shaded with graphite pencil, darker in its core.  I don't feel that magical, colorful, wistful love. I feel the havy, dirty, mud stuck to the bottom of my boots, the ones that don't fit me in the first place. I am wet, knuckles bleeding, fists clinched, teeth shifting back and forth as my Jaw viciously controls each movement.  Their is a big storm brewing... the storm chasers won't be able to catch it. Mother nature can't stop it. I will hide in the bunker, hope for sunshine in the morning and will venture to explore the destruction, alone, tired, wet, knuckles bleeding, fists clinched, teeth shifting...

Its hard for me to decide when to visit Piper at her grave. Sometimes I am nudged by her older brothers, other times I feel the need to touch her headstone and say out loud, "I love you". Sometimes I feel like a bad mom because I just drive by. Today, I felt rushed between things, but also felt I needed to visit. As I drove down the gravel road, the sun peaking through the clouds casting beautiful shadows next to each headstone, I saw a new grave being prepared near Piper. A new neighbor, and a new family in the trenches of their loss. I told Piper I hope she has a new friend to play with, but also apologized that another baby wasn't in their mommas arms. Surprised by unfamiliar emotions casting over me, I started to feel angry, followed by helpless, followed by confusion. I looked at the small patch of dirt, rickety table and square piece of artifical grass waiting to welcome the family to their baby's permanent resting space. How would they turn that old table into ...

I can't believe it myself. You are here. With Gratitude we accept you into our hearts. With Love we will give you everything we have. You are perfect, you are you.  Blonde hair, soft skin, long toes and a joyful mouth curved up at the edges. We Love you.  And We miss you. We are forever changed.  I am forever yours, even though you are not forever mine. 

Today I had an hour alone. As I drove with the windows down, having space to experience the feel and sound of the wind blowing, I thought "I haven't been this happy in a long time." The thought was fleeting, because I became scared to think this. The months after after experiencing loss - I subconsciously was living and keeping myself in a place of "sad". For many reasons my spirit needed this to protect me during those initial months of deep grief and scary depression. There were chemical changes happening in my brain that were out of my control. My mind remained in this state because I believed that this was how I would feel forever and because it didn't seem fair to feel happy.  But today is different. When people told me my response to grief would change, and it's role in my life would shift with time- I didn't believe them.  But today is different,  I get it now.  No two timelines are the same for everyone.  Some people want to hear "it wil...

Since we lost Piper, many women have shared their babies, their stories, their hurt and appreciation with me. These deeply fragile pieces of their life story are not ones easily shared or received. When a woman sais to me, "my miscarriage was much earlier than yours, so its not as hard as what you are experiencing," I am quickly reminded that even with our common thread, each of our stories are very different, yet we are quick to compare. Why do we do this to ourselves and others? May be because we feel a need to reassure someone else with comparisons that favor their story, may be because we need to find ways to lessen our ache. May be because as women we are endocterinated to compare, judge and question to survive society. Our stories are absolutely different, but those differences do not necessitate comparison. No story or life is of less value than another.  As humans we are each different and so are our experiences with loss and levels of connection to our pregnancy or b...

Sitting.  Pain in my stomach. Remembering the boys days of birth. Remembering what I wanted with Piper.  Wanting to feel it all differently.  Hearing the cries.  Wanting more.  Wanting Piper and Wanting a baby in my arms.  Each place adds peace or dissapointment.  Sharing my story. Helping others. Being in places that remind me of what I wanted. Healing the large cracks in my heart.. Being in these places forces me to go there. Emotionally, physically, spiritually. To think about my experience. What I wish it would have been. What I hoped her to be.  People who can understand and see the importance. People who can't or won't dive into the truth about loss. I am at odds with the truth.  But I am here and so is she. 

JOY! My husband and I found out I was pregnant in May 2020, during the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic in the United States. The new addition would be joyfully welcomed by three older and loving brothers. It was a bit of a surprise, I was scared, but chose to fill my thoughts with more Joy and less fear. I feared what having a baby in a pandemic would look and feel like compared to previous experiences. None the less, we carried on, wrapped our growing baby in our joy while silently hoping that our fourth child would be our first girl. And she was.  Prenatal Care and the Pandemic During the pandemic, prenatal care was different, appointments were done via telehealth and the medical world was preoccupied with new protocols brought on by COVID 19. I had an ultrasound completed at 10 weeks GA: normal. A follow up visit in the office at 12 weeks: normal. My 16 week visit was a telehealth call. I remember saying to the Nurse Practitioner "I just don't like that I cannot be in th...

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 th...

Before you had Postpartum Depression, your days were structured much differently. Feeling validated in your self worth and connecting with your sense of identity involved a lot of moving pieces that you were the leader of. Well balanced meals would have been planned, doctors appointments made, programs created at work, friendships confirmed and house cleaned. All in one day. To have a sense of satisfaction, A LOT would have to happen. But now you are experiencing  Postpartum Depression, everything is deemed impossible by the chemicals in your brain that you have no control over. You don't get to be validated by a long day in the office or managing household duties. Now that you are experiencing PPD you have only brief moments to achieve any sense of worth and they come in the form of sitting up and moving your body, or taking a shower, or having a half-lucid conversation with a close family member.  You are beaten down by depression and you are slowly being robbed of confidenc...

Today was a bad day, one that made me question my progress and mental stamina. I felt low, anxious, hateful towards myself and regreted every decision I made parenting up to this point. Grief doesn't slowly get better, it gets better and then worse and then kind of better and then new feelings emerge. This happens day to day, hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute. That is the complicated nature of grief you don't know about until you are experiencing it. I started to worry again that the scary side of post pardum depression was making its way back to the forefront? I wondered if it was another wave of grief unfamiliar to me? Then while walking our dog, I happened to look up at the stars in the dark night, and it became clear, it was actually much more simple, I simply missed her. For a moment I allowed myself to believe that I deserved that feeling, the deep missing of what could have been. This feeling, by far, has emerged to be the single most impossible one to aknowledge ...

I remember hearing stories of friends who had miscarriages. That term thrown around here and there in close circles, usually a passing conversation. Rarely the story spoken by the person who actually experienced it. When someone hinted at that term, I felt sad for them for a moment and always said "healthy babies are a miracle" and then moved on. That was as much as I knew how to say and embarrassingly to admit now, I couldn't understand how someone could have such strong, long lasting feelings surrounding their experience of a miscarriage. I didn't say baby, because to me it was a miscarriage. I think in those moments my heart and soul couldn't bare to consider that type of hurt, honestly it was too hard for me to know how to feel or what to say. I had three healthy boys with no issues getting pregnant, I could not empathize. I know I said things that were probably hurtful not knowing so. I am sure I complained about parenting challenges amidst women who so wante...

As we move into 2021, it seems to be common thought that 2020 was awful, and must be forgotten. 2020 created experiences and uprooted uncomfortable feelings for our entire world. Some people were filled with anticipatory grief and fear, while others were living in the thick of awful traumas and sadness. Some people ignored the realities of our world, while others chose to stand strong and tall, and speak out. For me, 2020 was a shit show mixed with confusion, fear and appreciation. The most impactful experience for me was our daughter dying due to Trisomy 13. I felt all sorts of things, each changing everyday. I experienced depression, worry, fear, grief, sadness, desire, hope, love...  But as we each enter 2021 searching for "better", let us not assume those of us who experienced death and loss want to forget that part of our story and merely move on. As mothers and fathers who had hoped to ring in the new year with sleepless nights, tiny bows and coos from our babies, we en...

I Surrender    I became a parent 9 years (and some months) ago, when my husband and I welcomed our oldest son, Brayden, into the world. Since then, I have had three more children. That makes three boys living earth side and our youngest, our girl, living in our hearts. I delivered Piper at 18 weeks GA. She had died sometime before, but we didn’t know until an US was completed in follow up to abnormal genetic testing results.  Piper was diagnosed with Trisomy 13, a genetic abnormality that we had no control over. The day we found out she might have Trisomy 13, our grief journey was initiated. The day we delivered her sweet, tiny body (perfect in every way), we set foot on the actual path.  Two months after I delivered Piper in the hospital, surrounded by rooms of screaming babies, my grief changed from channeled energy, self-sufficiency and healthy discussion to sadness, fear, chest pain and incompetence. I withdrew from my life.  The holiday season had commenced...

Sitting in the waiting room with a dead baby inside of me, completely numb. Holding my husband's hand and waiting. One hour before "I just want to let you know that I do not see a heartbeat...let me go talk with the doctor and have her take a look." That moment began the slow decline away from my humanity and reality. My mind silencing my thoughts of the reality, my physical heart pumping, but my theoretical heart still. Months later as grief set in, the fog over powered me and my inability to focus became paralyzing, I began to question why pregnancy loss is so damn lonely, even when I thought I was doing it all right. Talking about my loss, starting a group in our daughter's memory, participating in weekly therapy and being supported by an amazing partner. How did I get to the point where the silence around pregnancy loss was affecting me so deeply? So I started talking about my memories of our experience outloud, sometimes repeating certain parts over and over. The...

 As I began going down a dark, uncertain path of my grief journey and was contemplating leaving my job, a family member asked me, “Claire, do you think that you might have too high of an expectation of others[in your healing process]?”. Great question. I had returned to work 6 weeks after losing Piper half-way through our pregnancy and I was hurting, depressed and I was angry at a lot of people. First, it was my doctor, then society, then other happy pregnant people, and now my village of co-workers and friends. I just couldn’t believe that I would be subject to insensitive people in such an awful and raw time in my life. I had been told by others in the loss community that people would say insensitive things, I was told that people wouldn’t know what to say and would be more likely to be silent. I knew about the stigma around pregnancy and infant loss. But, I hadn’t  believed it all until going back to work, wow, it REALLY EXISTED. It exists because in the minds of most,...

I want to know, are you not here because of me? Did you think I wasn't ready? Are you disappointed, hurt, mad? Or do you believe in me, that I can do something with your life? I am selfish and want to hold you, knowing I never can.  I am sorry if I caused you to leave the world. Or is this your plan?  How do I know you wanted this and how do I make sure to carry it out right.  I need to know that you feel my heart opening to loving you.  I need to know how to be there for you  I need to know you are ok.  I just want to tell you I love you.