Outside Looking In
When I first started blogging, I found myself fitting in, not with the other mom bloggers, but with the fringe groups. The infertility bloggers, the baby loss bloggers, the special needs bloggers, those were people I could identify with much more so than the people I was supposed to fit in with. Maybe I hadn’t lost a child, maybe I hadn’t struggled in that very same way, but I had struggled in my own way.
We were the outsiders. The misfits. We had stories that no one wanted to hear about. Elephants sat at our tables, in corners and we were forever on the outside of normal, looking in. It’s the natural progression, I suppose, that I would create a space for us to gather. I’m proud of that. There are many of us outsiders. So many more than I’d thought.
When my daughter was born sick, it was no surprise that it was these people that came to my side with swords to help me slay my dragon, fluffy tissues to wipe the tears, and a barf bucket for when it all came to be too much.
I have an email folder that I’ve carefully saved every email I’ve gotten from that time that someday, I will print out to show my daughter. Most of the emails are from the people like me. Like most of you. The outsiders. The people who have been through hell but know how to make the ride a little…easier.
Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss day. Every year, I do a Wall of Remembrance for the people who have picked me up, dusted me off and wiped the barf off my face when I needed it most.
For that, I owe them everything.
According to the Center’s For The Disease Control’s Website, about 1 in every 100-200 births in the United States results in a stillbirth. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 4 million stillbirths occur yearly worldwide. The numbers for neonatal and postnatal deaths run into the tens of thousands.
Those numbers seem large to me, but even after having to take a statistics class to get through nursing school I can’t say that I’m much of a numbers person. My son, he likes numbers, which is why he’ll be off saving the world, one string of code at a time, while Your Aunt Becky sits here, mouth breathing and occasionally wondering aloud, “Is the INTERNET working?”
Numbers aren’t my thing. People are my thing. 1 in 100-200 sounds like a hell of a lot bigger number when you attach faces to those numbers. Faces, stories and names. People. My friends. My nieces, my nephews, their parents. Tables forever missing one. Lives cut short. Unlived.
Still born. Born still.
My friends. Their children.
Ashley
Hannah
Baby Morgan
Baby Twin lost at 8 wks
Kiara Jolie
Jellybean
Baby C miscarried at 12 weeks on 1/7/07
Robin
Brian
Mindy’s three angels
Gabriel
Anne & Jed’s babies
Sydney
Athena Rose Moore – 24 weeks Gestation (2nd loss, only one named)
Baby 1 – 9 weeks
Baby B – Twin to my 13yo, 12 weeks
Baby 2 – 9 weeks
Baby JP
Nicholas
Tevin, Taylor & Tristen
Baby J A and Baby J B
Anna
Robert Alan
Lilee
Selena- lost pregnancy at 9 weeks
Liam
Jacob Lane
JoeJoe Sherman
Baby Nick
Jonathan
Baby K, Gabriel Connor, Christian Elliot and Andrew
Emmerson
Baby Kuyper
Mara S.
Eva and seven additional losses
Kyle S.
Ava and Nathaniel
Rose
Micaela, Angelica, and Frankie
Donald Angus
Becca’s twin siblings
Ryne Moyer
Marcus Reeves
Julian Ulysses
Becky
Caleb
Sean Isaac
Clayton and Skylar
Jessica Anne
Ashlynn Brooks
David Lee
Babies Boone
Olcott-Lueke angels
Baby A and Baby B twin girls
Kaitlyn Grace
Brennan
Ellery
Quinn
Josie Ree Smith
Samuel and Amelia
Draven Fredrick
I’ll add any names to this list so if you’d like me to add a name, please don’t hesitate to email me aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com or leave me a comment.
I will be cross-posting this to Band Back Together as well. We also have a baby loss, child loss, and miscarriage category over on that site, so any stories you’d like to share over there would be more than welcome. The site has two loss mommas as founders.
At 7 pm tonight, October 15th, A Day To Remember, I will burn a candle in memorium.
Dona nobis pacem.
(give us peace) Lord, give us peace.