Somehow I stopped writing, I got busy despite the fact that I was still very much missing and grieving my baby. But I feel compelled to write on a specific event that happened recently so catching up on the blog will have to wait…or maybe never happen.
I also fear this post will not be as well-written or put together as in the past. I am clearly out of practice. I regret that I stopped writing but am amazed at how the time was filled and not only filled but FLEW by as I try to raise tiny humans (well they are not so tiny anymore-my oldest is turning TEN in a couple of weeks!)
It’s been SIX years since I last held my dead daughter. I’m still in awe most days that I continue to breathe. But I do, and in fact, have a 4-year-old blonde boy who wouldn’t exist had my daughter lived. It’s incredibly surreal. I’ve managed over the past six years to garner a support system- a virtual one of sorts. While there is an in-person baby loss support group in my local town, and I was involved briefly, it soon became apparent that it wasn’t a great fit for me. Sitting in the back room of a restaurant amongst women crying torrential tears over their loss of a 10-week or less embryo made me cynically and internally roll my eyes. And counseling- that was a joke for me- nobody could understand how I was feeling or what I was going through unless they’d had a similar experience. I even had one counselor say she really couldn’t help me.
So I turned online (to Facebook of course, as reliable as any young Gen-x/Elder millennial). I searched for stillbirth and infant loss groups and landed in several and somehow from one or some of them (I don’t even know), a new group formed, and then another sub-group, and these ladies who’d all experienced stillbirth in the 2nd to 3rd trimester-became my support, my tribe, my confidants. We who had older living children commiserated over parenting, we went through pregnancy after loss together and rejoiced when our healthy rainbow babies arrived earth-side. I even attended an in-person retreat when I was pregnant with my rainbow baby. To be together and talk about our babies and laugh-it was incredible, it was so healing.
Six days ago I started seeing Facebook posts of another retreat. No. Wait, was I invited? No, I wasn’t. Because I felt CERTAIN that I would have been there in a heartbeat, seeing as it was held a mere 4-hour drive from my home. Also, the retreat coincided with the days before my dead daughter’s sixth birth-date (which, of course, lines up perfectly with May 2017, thus making May 8, 2023, also a Monday).
Over the weekend and over the past several days, more of these moms who attended the retreat are posting their happiness, joy, and celebration of getting to meet others like them in the “Club.” Each one is like a stab in the heart. I feel like the kid that didn’t get invited to the birthday party. Except it feels a tiny bit worse than that. I do feel betrayed, I have spent several days even CRYING over the fact that I was excluded (I mean not entire days, not like when my baby DIED, but like a few minutes on each day). One thing I’m trying to tell myself is that I wasn’t the only one left out. From what I’m reading TWELVE moms attended. There are fifty-nine bereaved moms in our Facebook group-I am Facebook friends with thirty-one. Four of these moms attended the retreat I met at the first retreat we had. I suspect this was a clique setup. That the twelve moms who are chummy with each other decided to have a retreat and not open it to anybody else. And while that’s their absolute right to do that, they called the retreat (Name of Facebook Group Retreat 2023). I have seen a couple of other moms comment about how they wish they’d known about the retreat, etc., but I seriously doubt anyone is as upset as I am. It does feel a little silly to be this upset. But it also does feel like I was betrayed. I thought these women were my friends and then to learn that’s not actually true, well, it stings a little bit.
I hate drama so while I have so many unanswered questions, I will probably never ask them. I’ll just post this anonymous blog instead. I’ll be like a 1950s bereaved mom-she never had social media. She probably just cried into her pillow at night, never speaking of her lost little one.
I’m curious to know, well, one, if anyone is still out there reading WordPress blogs. But also, if anyone has found true long-lasting support through their grief. Like an amazing grief counselor, virtual support group, or in-person group. What are the characteristics of high-quality support? What does it look like to give it and what does it look like to receive it?
and sent Astoria a Vermont Teddy Bear dressed like an angel. I also don’t care if other people believe their baby is now an angel and I’m not offended nor do I argue with people about if their baby is an angel.
OneInOneSixty 