Monday, February 4, 2008
Losing Libby
Today was my due date for our baby that we lost in miscarriage last summer. I didn't expect to be sad today, but I am sad today. Yesterday I didn't feel gloomy in anticipation of today, and I'm pregnant again and looking forward to another baby's birth, but today I am feeling the loss anew. We were able to bury our baby, whom we felt was a daughter, in a Catholic cemetery and the same flood of emotion has happened to me when we have visited the grave. I am fine, I am good, but when I kneel down over the spot that holds our tiny baby's body, I become undone. I didn't want to get a plot and bury our baby but my husband insisted, and he was right. It's good to have a place to go and mourn, to remember. It makes what has happened not feel like a bad dream. Her life was short but it mattered, and it has changed me. I've read that many women carry cells for years from each baby they have been pregnant with, so literally, pieces of her are etched into my being. Even if I don't have her cells in my body, I will always carry the memories of what it felt like to see the positive pregnancy test, to say the name Libby out loud for the first time and know it would be our daughter's name, and what it felt like to find out she had gone from this life. And I will always carry the hope that someday, baby girl, someday we'll meet in heaven.
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7 comments:
I'm so sorry for you loss. I hope you feel some peace knowing your beautiful child is in our Lord's loving arms. We'll say a prayer for you.
I am so sorry for your loss. You and Libby will be in my prayers.
I am glad your husband insisted.
thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes, I am touched by your kindness
elissa
I went through the same thing in September. The day surprised me. I also was pregnant again and yet that new hope doesn't fill the void of what might have been.
We didn't have a grave or any physical reminder and I've felt that loss. I didn't realize how much until just recently when sorting through baby clothes and realizing that I didn't have any sort of tangible memento, any physical object or place to connect with the brief life that I carried within me. I've actually been meaning to blog about that and plan to write about it in the next few weeks. I'm glad for you that you have that grave site to visit (and for your son and future children to visit as well) and that your daughter has a name.
You and she are both in my prayers.
We are thinking of you and praying for you, and we know Libby is too.
Melanie, I am sorry that you as well lost a baby and pray that God will give you grace as you continue to heal.
I haven't spoken to very many women about how they chose to grieve the babies they miscarried, but the consensus seems to be that having some physical reminders is greatly good for us. And I don't think it's ever too late to create some. We have a little pink cross hanging on a wall in our house, the kind people tend to give as baptism gifts, and just having that as a reminder is nice. Our toddler has his toys and books in every room, which constantly remind me of him, and it seems appropriate that our daughter would also have something of 'hers' in our house. I find myself looking at the cross a lot when I think of her.
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