Hidden Struggles after Pregnancy Loss
I wanted to share my story in a different way today by focusing on another perspective of life after loss.
For those of you who are new here, my daughter was stillborn at 40 wks 5 days, July 2019. It’s been 4 years since I lost my baby and because of her I’m here educating others about pregnancy loss and working on normalizing this human experience without using trigger warnings so that there is no longer shame or guilt around stillbirth or miscarriage at least from external factors- other people making us feel that way.
So Evelyn was a summer baby, so the entirety of the year, everyone saw my ever growing belly! Once I had lost her, I didn’t realize the effect it would ultimately have on me and my life.
Socially I grew inward and stopped wanting to go out and be social. I didn’t want anyone to see me. I just knew what they would all be thinking. Didn’t she just have a baby? Where is her baby? Etc. I didn’t want anyone to draw attention to my slowly decreasing belly and my leaky boob spots on my shirt. I gave birth but had no baby to show for it. Just the postpartum body.
I felt so much shame and being seen would give it validation- at least in my brain. Someone would think it was my fault- or was that just me projecting my feelings that I did something to cause this, even though that simply was not true. My girls and I spent most of our time outside, playing, walking, and being with our friends. But now I avoided this. We lived in a military community so we all knew each other and frequently went on walks and would talk to multiple people on our small journeys! I just did not have the capacity to talk with anyone.
Needless to say, I was stopped by one of our neighbors who loudly and obnoxiously said, “where’s the baby?!”” Now mind you, she wasn’t my friend, she pretended to be nice to me because we had a mutual friend, so this was just not a good experience. Now, she didn’t know I had lost Evelyn, so I never faulted her for that, but because we were never actually friends it left a memory I just can’t forget. But because of this, she ended up telling me that she also lost a baby- small world right. And you could tell she felt bad for being so big about the whole thing.
School started at the end of August, early September and walking to the bus stop was excruciating for me. One of the other moms was pregnant around the same time as me and I knew I would see her. I felt like it was so fucking unfair. Why did she get to keep her baby and I didn’t? It was an experience and trigger that I haven’t gone through at that point in time yet, and it was a doozy. It hurt. I would cry on our way home for weeks. Obviously just weeping and eyes watering, I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself.
There was another time, the time when I went to target while the girls were at school for the first time after Evelyn died. This time the mannequins got to me. The baby and toddler mannequins. I had forgotten or rather was in denial about the life that got taken from me once Evelyn died. All the milestones and sizes that she would go through. Having daughters was my dream come true, because I wanted to create the relationship I never got to have with my mom. I was going to be a girl mom- I mean, I was already but instead of x2 it was going to be x3! Nothing better.
I broke down and cried while I walked around looking for something to purchase that would bring me joy or at least a dopamine hit, anything to take my pain and my mind off of her and our lost life together.
The lady that I babysat for saw me in Target and was looking around for the baby and said- where’s the baby?! Again, another situation where she had no clue, I didn’t announce it and didn’t see her since before I gave birth. She meant well and I really liked her so I just told her what happened and that was that.
Here are a few things that changed within me after I lost her.
I lost the ability to make eye contact with people. Don’t ask me why, I still haven’t uncovered why. But what I can make of it, if I made eye contact with anyone, it just made me think that “ they knew '' They would see right inside my soul and see that my daughter died and that I was completely and utterly broken.I didn't want to be judged. I was so scared of what others might say or what they might see in me. I always tried to hide my gaze to avoid being seen. It made me feel safe. I felt and still feel quite often that looking someone in the eyes is too vulnerable for me. Which is something I am working on now within myself.
I have become socially awkward, I can’t do “small talk”. It drives me bonkers. After losing a baby- talking about the weather, a shitty neighbor, a “bad day”, a forgotten fry in the drive through order- these things were fucking pointless. I want to talk about life. About what you're doing with your life, what goals you have, where are you headed, what new things do you want to try. I want to talk about things that matter. Because at the end of the day life is fucking short and it’s not fair, but because of that, I want to cut through the shitty chatter and really get down to the good stuff before I die.
Seriously, if people start talking to me about these things, I shut down. Nope this is not the person for me. It makes finding new friends really hard!! Let me tell you!
Some Days I have 4 children, some days I have 5. You have a sense about who to share your baby with. Not everyone deserves to know my truth. I have to decide in seconds how many children I have because I then have to follow up when they are counting my kids and notice one is missing. So I protect her and myself by choosing who gets to know or not. I can normally tell by my gut reaction to a person whether they would care or not and go from there. You have to decide for yourself whether it’s worth your capacity to share your baby or not!! There is no right or wrong answer here, only what feels right!!!!
My hopes in sharing my story and the different perspectives and parts is that other people feel called to do the same. So that we can work toward normalizing these conversations and allow these moms and families to really share how they are doing in hopes of connecting with others and helping others feel safe and seen as well. Stillbirth is one of those things that many people just don’t want to talk about because it isn’t happy, it is uncomfortable and so it gets swept under the rug. Each time that happens a mom is shamed a bit more, she is forgotten about a bit more and she is reminded that she is alone and doesn’t ask for help when she needs it. This adds to the Maternal health crisis that we are already dealing with. Not to mention the mental health of these moms are severely unsupported, and that’s saying it lightly.
If you are someone who feels called to support these families, I can teach you how!
If you are a birth or postpartum worker and want to elevate your skills and expertise, I’ve created the Pregnancy Loss Education Course which goes live on October 1st. I’m doing a presale now and you can get the course at half price in exchange for a testimonial and feedback. If you are interested head to the show notes and click the presale link. The first 30 people to purchase the course get the half off deal. It ends October 10th!!
