Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day

October 15 is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It's not that grieving parents need a special day to remind them of the day they miscarried, or the day their baby was born still, or the day their baby died of SIDS. This day is really about support, education and awareness. 

Next month will be three years since the worst day of my life.  There has not been one single day since then that I have not thought about my daughter Sophia. It's in the quiet moments of my day, usually in the shower or when I'm driving in the car alone. She's always right there in the front of my mind.

Support was very hard to find. People don't want to talk about your dead baby. Sounds horrible. It is. It's horrible to push when you're in labor knowing your baby was not going to give a little cry when she entered the world, knowing she was already gone. Or when the funeral director comes in and takes your baby away. Or when you have to pick out a 24 inch casket. And then when you get home there's the nursery door you have to walk by and wonder when you'll ever be ready to pack away all her things. And the emptiness you feel where just a day before you felt life. No one wants to talk about these things, except other moms who have gone through the same thing. We want to talk about our babies. We want hugs. We want not to feel so alone. It's so sad to want to find another mom who just lost her baby so you have someone to talk to about the pain that only another mom who just lost her baby could possibly understand.

My Mom is a survivor,
or so I've heard it said.
But I can hear her cry at night,
When all others are in bed.

I watch her lay awake at night
and go to hold her hand.
She doesn't know I'm with her
to help her understand.

But like the sands on the beach
that never wash away,
I watch over my surviving mom,
who thinks of me each day.

She wears a smile for others,
a smile of disguise.
But through Heaven's door
I see tears flowing from her eyes.

My mom tries to cope with death
to keep my memory alive.
But anyone who knows her knows
it's her way to survive.

As I watch over my surviving mom
through Heaven's open door.
I try to tell her
that angels protect me forever more.

I know that doesn't help her,
or ease the burden she bears.
So if you get a chance, go visit her
and show her that you care.

For no matter what she says,
no matter what she feels,
my surviving mom has a broken heart
that time won't ever heal.

(by Kaye Des'Ormeaux)

She was never promised to me forever. Through the pain and tears I still thank God for the gift of Sophia. I got to hold her every second of her life.