I Should Have More Children to Hold

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

I don't really know how to write this one. And if I'm being completely truthful, I don't know that I want to.

I've written about hard things before. I've written about grief and faith and finding joy in the middle of seasons that feel anything but joyful. I've found ways to put words around feelings that seemed impossible to explain. But this one feels different.

Maybe it's the fact that there are two babies I should have gotten to know. Two little lives that existed inside of me and somehow managed to take up permanent residence in my heart. Maybe it's the fact that I'm sitting here trying to write about them, and I don't even know where to begin. Or maybe it's the fact that I am tired of trying to make heartbreaking things sound beautiful.

I have two babies in heaven.

And I wish I didn't. There. I said it.

I wish I didn't know what pregnancy loss felt like. I wish I didn't understand how quickly excitement can turn into fear, or how cruel it feels to watch the world continue moving when yours has just fallen apart.

I wish I didn't know what it was like to imagine an entire lifetime with someone and then have to grieve all of it at once. The birthdays. The Christmas mornings. The little shoes by the door. The extra seat at the dinner table. The sibling relationships I imagined. The tiny personalities I never got to discover.

I grieve memories I never got to make. And sometimes I wonder if people understand how strange that feels.

How do you explain missing someone whose voice you've never heard? How do you explain loving someone you never got to hold? How do you explain that there are moments when your family feels completely full of love and somehow still incomplete?

I don't know. I just know that I do.

I am a mom to a beautiful little boy who has brought more joy into my life than I could ever begin to explain. I love being his mama. I love the ordinary chaos of motherhood. The laughter. The questions. The little moments that remind me just how lucky I am to get to watch him grow.

And sometimes, right in the middle of those moments, I think about the two who aren't here. I wonder what they would have been like. I wonder if they would have looked like their brother. If they would have shared his laugh. If our house would have been louder. If our mornings would have been even more chaotic. If I would have spent my days breaking up sibling arguments and complaining about the laundry piling up.

I would give so much to have those problems.

And then comes the guilt. The guilt of wondering about a different life when the one in front of me is already so beautiful. The guilt of feeling sad when I have so much to be thankful for. The guilt of wondering whether I have the right to still grieve something that happened in the past.

I know, logically, that grief doesn't work that way. But knowing something and feeling it are two very different things. And there are days when I am still trying to figure out how to be both grateful and heartbroken.

I think one of the loneliest parts of pregnancy loss is that the world doesn't always know what to do with it. There aren't always pictures to share. There aren't always memories other people can reminisce about. Sometimes there is nothing tangible to point to when you want to remind the world that someone existed.

And people move on. Not maliciously. Not necessarily because they don't care. Life just keeps happening.

But I remember. I remember that there were two more lives I was supposed to love. I remember the hope. I remember how it felt to have that hope taken away. And I remember that no matter how many years pass, there is a part of me that will always wonder who they would have become.

I wish I could tell you that my faith made all of this easier. It hasn't always. There have been moments when I've wanted to ask God why. Moments when I've struggled to understand how something so small could leave behind something so enormous.

I know the verses. I know the promises. I know that God is good. But sometimes I don't want someone to remind me that God has a plan. Sometimes I want to ask why the plan couldn't have included my babies growing up.

Sometimes I don't want to hear that everything happens for a reason. I want to be allowed to say that this happened, that it hurt, and that I wish with everything in me that it hadn't.

I don't need my babies' deaths to become a testimony that makes everyone else feel better about suffering. I don't need to find a silver lining. I don't need to explain how something good came out of losing them.

I just need them to matter. And they do.

Even if the world never knew them. Even if I never got to see their faces. Even if their entire lives fit into a chapter of mine that feels far too short.

They mattered.

And I think part of what makes this so hard is that I don't know what to do with all the love I still have for them. Motherhood usually gives love somewhere to go. You make breakfast. You wipe tears. You give hugs. You show up to school events. You stay up too late worrying. You kiss foreheads and tuck blankets around little shoulders. You get to do something with all that love.

But what do you do when there's no one there to receive it? Where do you put the love you were saving for a child who never came home?

I think I've been trying to answer that question for a long time. Maybe that's part of why I'm writing tonight.

I can't hold them. I can't tell them goodnight. I can't watch them grow. But I can say they were here. I can say that I loved them. I can say that losing them changed me in ways I'm still discovering. And I can say that I am their mother, even if my motherhood looks different with them.

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. I know there are other women reading this who understand every word. Women who have cried in bathrooms, sat through painful appointments, smiled through pregnancy announcements, avoided baby aisles, or quietly counted the ages their children would have been. And I know there are women whose stories look nothing like mine.

I don't want to speak for all of us. I just want to say that if today hurts, it can hurt.

If you're angry, you don't have to disguise it as gratitude.

If you're still asking questions, you don't have to rush toward answers.

If you love God and you're disappointed, confused, or exhausted, I believe there's room for that, too.

I don't have a beautiful conclusion for this.

I don't have five lessons I've learned or a perfect verse that ties everything together.

I have a little boy I get to hold.

I have two babies I don't.

I have a heart that is grateful, and a heart that is broken, and somehow they are the same heart.

And tonight, that's all I have.

---

To my two babies,

I'm sorry that our stories together were so short. I'm sorry that I don't have more memories of you.

I wish I had gotten the chance to know you. I wish I knew what your favorite things would have been, what would have made you laugh, and what kind of people you would have grown into.

I wish I could have watched your daddy love you. I wish your brother could have known you. I wish I could have been tired from chasing all of you around the house instead of tired from carrying the weight of missing you.

I wish so many things.

I hope my grandma is holding you tight. I hope she's loving on you in all the ways I wish I could. I hope she's told you about your mama, and I hope she knows just how much I wish I could trade places with her for even a moment, just to hold you both.

And I hope that somehow, in a way I can't begin to understand, you know how much you are loved. I hope you know that you were never just a pregnancy. You were my children. You still are.

And while I believe heaven holds you, I wish earth had gotten more time with you.

I love you, my two little ones. I wish you were here.

Love, Mama