9 months on

Today makes it 9 months since our daughter Elise was stillborn at 33 weeks. Nine months, and I still can't believe I've just written that sentence. It still feels like I've been punched in the stomach. It's very exhausting trying to catch my breath, clutching my gut as I stare into space in disbelief.

It's not like this every day, or even every hour. Sometimes days go by when I feel pretty good. But when I do feel weighed down by grief, it feels terribly lonely, because most of our friends and family have gone on with their "normal" lives. I'm learning that when I need to find support, I need to be selective. Otherwise, the pain of getting a response like, "Are you still taking your antidepressants?" or "Are you going to have another baby?" makes me want to take that person by the neck and fling them onto the floor.

So this blog is for people who feel alone in their loss. It's for people who want to understand the grief of stillbirth. It's for people who are deluding themselves that their own routines and petty concerns can excuse them from remembering that we are still hurting. It's for people who have forgotten Elise. It's for people who think she was "just" a pregnancy. Guess what? She wasn't. She was our daughter, she is STILL our daughter, and a little sister to Felix, and a niece, and a granddaughter, and a cousin...

This summer I was hit with the realization I will never see her grow up. There I was watching the high school graduation ceremony for my niece, and the next thing I knew I was rushing out of the auditorium to cry my eyes out. Summer has brought memories of being pregnant with Elise, outings to the park and the pool with Felix where pregnant women are everywhere with big bellies bursting under their tank tops, and all the anxieties of trying to conceive again.

So yes, we do want to have another baby. No, I am not taking antidepressants now because I'm worried about the effects if I get pregnant (among other reasons). But however much others want to think, even unconsciously, that another baby, if we have one, will "fix" our loss of Elise, it doesn't work that way, no more than remarriage replaces a dead spouse or other children take the place of another dead child. No, we never saw Elise alive in this world, but yes, our grief is as crushing as that of someone who shared some time on this planet with a loved one they lost.

Lastly, I want to say to those who are acquaintances of someone who has experienced a death in their family recently: SAY SOMETHING IN SYMPATHY. Ask "how are you REALLY doing?" You won't be "reminding" that person of their grief, dummy: they always already feel it. Get out of your own ego, the one telling you death is icky and uncomfortable, and someone else's sadness is awkward, and act like a human with a sense of decency and compassion. And by the way, you can still ask after months have passed.

Where to, Elise? Where did you go? Where are we going? Such simple questions, but the answers are never, ever predictable. So I'll just ask, Where to next? and let go of the rest.