The world unconnected
The first month felt like such a blur, a month had passed, a month since I had her safe where she was supposed to be. She was not connected physically any longer.
When us women get pregnant we are instantly in love, our bodies are instantly connected to the life we were creating, in overdrive building blocks that will become fingers, eyelashes, elbows, and footprints. The connection is from the very start.
When your baby dies that connection is a road block, you don’t know who you are or what your job is. You’ve only known one thing for the months prior, to protect that baby, and to bring them into this world. Who are you now?
6 months in and the disconnect from the world is still so real, something that cannot be explained well, that cannot be felt unless you have felt this first hand. When you find out your baby dies that connection is lost, you instantly are someone you never thought you would be. You, you are the woman that walks around with a child that cannot be seen, but only felt by really only you.
Who are you now? Living in a world of disconnection. Within yourself and the rest of the world.
I still look in the mirror at myself, at my own skin, and don’t know the person looking back, crying because I am scared of who I see. Who am I now?
Am I her mom, will I get recognized on Mother’s Day? Am I just ‘the girl who’s baby died,’ am I just a wife again? Maybe this question is easier answered when you have other little footprints that depend on you, but if you don’t that disconnect from the world is so real.
You don’t recognize your closest friends and family the same, your eyes are almost glazed over, who am I to them? They will never be her aunt, grandpa, moms best friend, they will never come to her first birthday or be on her emergency school list. Disconnection with everything and everyone.
When your baby dies so much of you dies, who you are, where you belong, what you do dies. Losing your child is like walking in a cave that doesn’t have a light at the end, you will always be searching for them, wishing for them back and to just hold them again for even a moment.
You feel like you are standing still, not knowing the world around you or the weight of your own two feet.
There is no living without your baby, there is only surviving, there is only forcing yourself to keep breathing and getting up day after day. You have to survive. Never ever did I think I would have to survive without her, to make choices that didn’t involve her, to never get the chance to know her alive.
The only thing I knew, the only thing that made me feel the least bit connected to the world was how much I know things aren’t promised. Unconditional love of the baby you lost is the only bit of control you have. Also, how much it was my job to protect her, her name and stand in the space of Bostyns mom forever.
What was your disconnection like?
Did you feel like it was difficult to look at yourself in the mirror?
Did you find a difficult time with the connection with others?
