Page 22 - flip book- How To Survive Baby Loss

How To Survive Baby Loss

verything has the potential to trigger you. In the begin-
Ening it is a perfectly normal reaction. Life does not stop,
even though you wish it would. You want to yell my child is
gone! Can’t you understand the mess my world is in? Triggers can
be expected in the reactions to the little baby things like birth
announcements, baby commercials or infant clothes. While ev-
eryone’s posting pictures of their whole family during the hol-
idays, you can’t help but to feel your child is missing. Family
or friends are whining about pregnancy pains, and you walk
away aching to have their problems as well. You will worry
about going into public, because you know you may just start
crying at a totally inappropriate moment. You have no desire to
explain your tears to the poor stranger who accidentally trig-
gered you. You will wonder if you can keep it together when
you are talking to your friend about all things family. Do not
be surprised about the moments that you are going along just
fine, and you are suddenly sideswiped with grief. Expect it to
happen. You want to scream your baby didn’t make it. It is okay
to not feel okay. You are fine, and this is normal.

In time, your triggers change, lessen or temporarily feel
worse. In the beginning, your goal may be to avoid or minimize
the triggers. This is a coping mechanism to survive. As process-
ing your grief continues, the goal may be facing the triggers as
they come and not taking offense as you would previously. You
have to give it time.

My triggers were when I was camping with my family. They
were oblivious to the fact that a shadow child was there. If you
are not familiar with that term, it’s a child that’s around the
same age as your child would be if they were here. The family
was adoring our daughter’s cousin who was six months older
than our son would have been. It was painful how this family
event was a reminder of who was missing. I longed for our son to
be enjoying his first camping trip, but because I was handling
my grief so well, his name was not mentioned once. My love for
our son will never go away, and I will always want him remem-
bered, mentioned, thought of, cared about and loved, just like
any living child, because he is living in Heaven even though we
cannot see his beautiful face.

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