Sometimes I still can’t believe that I get to parent my rainbow baby. Two years ago today, at just under 39 weeks pregnant, I checked into the hospital for a scheduled induction of labor. My midwife had offered me this option a week or two early as she…
January 31, 2015. I had a baby. But the hospital atmosphere was anything but celebratory. My baby had been born 20 weeks too soon, and as expected, did not survive. Giving birth had resulted in death instead of life. The hope that I had carried in expectation of adding a…
Mommy, When Will I Have a Sister?
I picked up my 3 year old daughter from preschool and listened as she told me about her new best friend; the one who had the “cutest” little sister. “Mommy, when will I have a sister?” she asked. As my eyes welled up with tears, I said, “I don’…
After a violent storm, a rainbow is a sign of hope, peace even. The storm is over and normal life can resume. But, it may not be like it was before. The storm may have caused damage that cannot be restored to its original state. It may have changed the…
As women, most of us have expectations for what motherhood will look like. We imagine the number of children we will have, how far apart in age they will be and in what order they will arrive. And then we assume everything will play out in just the way we…
Pregnancy after loss can be a generally trying time in a woman’s life. After the trauma of losing a baby and the grief that goes along with it, by the time a woman is pregnant again, there is a good chance that she is both physically and emotionally…
Lately, I’ve been feeling guilty about what I refer to as “the lost years” with my daughter, the two years between my 20 week pregnancy loss and the few months after my son was born. Maybe it’s that writing about pregnancy loss, grief, and pregnancy after…
The Emotional Weather of a Pregnancy After Loss
Pregnancy after loss can be as unpredictable and chaotic as the weather. The sun can be drowned out by rain in a matter of seconds and then reappear again just as quickly. The emotions involved in pregnancy after loss can be as unpredictable as the weather, leaving a woman feeling…
When a woman becomes pregnant again after experiencing a loss, she is often told “this is a different pregnancy, a different baby,” by those around her. Those words are meant to be a source of hope for the woman who is pregnant after loss. They are meant to…
A Rainbow in the Darkness
As a rainbow baby grows and changes, it gives a loss mom the opportunity to reflect on the long journey from leaving the hospital empty handed to bringing a baby home. I think people usually expect loss moms to simply be excited to be pregnant again, without taking into consideration…