Photo: Jessica Bonestroo Photography
I’ve been thinking all month about what (if anything) to write this month, seeing that it’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Sometimes, in the thick of parenting two little kids, our losses seem to fade into the background, a sad and heartbreaking circumstance that paved the way for both our girls. Sometimes, when cleaning up messes and disciplining toddlers and trying to grocery shop with both and maintain my sanity it’s hard to think about much else besides just getting through the day alive with everyone fed and unscathed.
But because of our losses, I’ve “met” so many of you I know your stories through emails, blog and Instagram comments and real-life coffee dates. Some of you have found my posts about miscarriage years later and are still writing me to share your stories – a fact that humbles me and makes me so very aware of the three babies we ourselves lost in the process of growing our family.
Sometimes I don’t think about our losses, until I do. When Ainsley puts together a puzzle in the blink of an eye or plays make believe with her Paw Patrol figurines. When Collins looks at me with her big, sparkly eyes and giggles the sweetest, softest giggle. When I notice that our girls both have the same set of amazing eyelashes or when Collins looks at her sister like she hung the moon, it hits me.
I wonder what their brother would have been like.
I wonder if their other siblings were boys or girls. I so wish I knew.
Like any (most?) types of loss, it never gets totally easy, life just continues on and time eases some of the raw edges. Losing three babies and now having two little ones makes me so aware of who they could or would have been. Joe is quick to remind me that the timing of our losses makes it such that we couldn’t have had the babies we lost AND our girls, and I wouldn’t trade our girls for the world. But when I look at Ainsley and Collins, a part of me will always wonder what our babies would have looked like. It shapes how you parent your earthly children, the thankfulness you have for the more mundane and challenging parts of parenting, the everyday moments that are somehow a little more special.
Madison