Category: Early Grief

To my friends, sisters, and fellow mothers who… 

cried with me

sent me flowers

texted me on special days

texted me on ordinary days

fed me

hugged me

dreamed of heaven with me

listened to me

listened to me when I repeated myself

rushed to me

held me

messaged me

shared your baby with me

talked to me

distracted me

sewed for me

knitted for me

googled for me

cooked for me

wrote to me

sent me books

prayed for me

prepared to meet with me

ministered to me

wept for me

reminisced with me

sent me a song

planted flowers

questioned with me

sent me a card

struggled with what to write me

was proud of me

mourned with me

sat in the mud with me….

I will always be grateful to you. 

I needed you, and I still need you.

I want to love and support others the way you love and support me. 

I hope you never need me the way that I need you. But if you do, I will be there. I will be honored. 

Love,

Aimee

I feel kicks in my belly. But my daughter is already gone. She stopped kicking. I am haunted by the movement that I feel – that I shouldn’t feel. I should’ve ran to the hospital when I stopped feeling her. But I never stopped feeling her. I still feel her. Am I crazy? 

Although it feels like my mind is playing tricks, the movements are explainable. When she was in me, I was feeling contractions pushing her little body against my uterus. I thought she was stretching. I was wrong. 

The weeks after she was born, I felt all my insides moving back into place as my womb shrunk.

Now I guess I just feel digestion. 

During pregnancy our bodies and minds become so keenly aware of any movement. We can feel hiccups and little rolls and turns. 

We are then left with the perception and nothing to perceive. The result is a phantom. Phantom kicks. 

Early on, in eager denial I thought, “Is she still here?! Is it a miracle?!” Of course not, I saw her leave me. She’s not here, and she’s not coming back. I’ll be the one going to her one day. She won’t come to me.

But why can’t she come to me in a dream? I dream the most random things. Can’t I have one dream of my beloved daughter? Daniel tells me to be careful what I wish for. He dreams of her…then he wakes up. 

I still want to dream of her. I want to join him in a dream, and we can be the family we were meant to be – the family we truly are. Do we have to wake up? We can stay a phantom family in a perpetual dream. Who says what’s real anyway? Why can’t our dream be reality? 

Why can’t our dream be reality?

When we lost Ginny, I knew it would be so, so important to actually process my emotions. I’ve heard horror stories of unprocessed grief leading to terrible things later in life. As much as I wanted to be happy and focus on the positive, I knew I needed to face every single yucky, painful feeling I had. 

Letting yourself feel everything is hard because it hurts. It hurts really bad. And just when you think things should be getting better, another wave of grief hits and you have to face it again and again. 

To add a layer of complexity to an already complex situation – after a few weeks of grieving I realized that there is productive grief and unproductive grief. It has to do with your thoughts. There are certain thoughts that would make me feel sad or angry or disappointed. I would process those feelings, feel better, and move on to the next thought. But there are some thoughts that would cause me to feel those painful emotions. I would process those feelings, and then I would feel worse, not better. I would not move on to the next thought. Instead I would dive deeper into that thought. It could become a cycle of despair, leading nowhere. 

Example – thinking of all the “what ifs” that could’ve saved Ginny. What if the midwife sent us straight to labor and delivery instead of scheduling a growth scan for Monday? What if I hadn’t mistaken contractions for movement? How could we have saved her? Could we have prevented this? Why didn’t I have motherly instincts telling me something wasn’t right? This line of thinking was important to process. I needed to think through these possibilities. I needed to come to peace that there is no way to change history and what happened happened. I needed to understand that even if we had done those things, there is no way to know if the outcome would’ve been different. I needed to understand that we did what we thought was best based on the information we had. I needed to understand that I didn’t do anything wrong. I did understand those things… but then my mind would go back. I would go back to the “what ifs” again and again. It would just make me feel worse about everything. I got stuck and fell into darkness. I had to pray hard to get out of it. I had to assure myself of truths I know. I had to read the Bible. I had to control my thoughts and not let myself go to places I knew were leading nowhere. 

Another example – I got caught into constantly thinking about what physically happened to Ginny. Originally Daniel and I thought it was important to find out what caused this, not because we needed know what happened with Ginny but to know what it means for future pregnancies. There was no way to change what happened to Ginny, but we could possible prevent this from happening again. After a while my thought process changed, and I felt like it was my duty as her mother to figure out what happened to Ginny. I read all the test results. I read placenta evaluation textbooks. I am no doctor, but I became somewhat obsessed with figuring out what happened. Bloodclots, cord knots, antibodies, thyroid levels, etc. etc. Was she in pain? Maybe I could find something our doctors didn’t. I have to at least try. I would feel so exhausted at the end of days of research. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. I needed to let go. I had to remind myself to change my thoughts when I get in this cycle. 

Final example – Some days I feel like I have nothing going for me. I don’t have my daughter; I don’t have my career. My past self would think my current self is a loser. I focus on what I don’t have and who I am not. This thinking leads me toward darkness, not light. It is not productive. In fact, it is a lie. I have an amazing marriage, friends, family. I have so, so much love. I have a new perspective on life and new passions. I still have all the skills I had before that can be applied in new ways. I have a future. I have a lot going for me.

All these negative cycles start with a lie… You could’ve saved her. You are a bad mom. You are a loser. The enemy wants us to believe lies. But the truth will set us from from cycles of despair. When I hear the lies, I stop and tell myself, “That is a lie. What is the truth?” 

Opposite of these unproductive thoughts are productive thoughts. What thoughts bring me toward light and love and truth? Now I have built a toolbox of productive thoughts I can turn to. Truths that help me progress in my grief. These include: imagining heaven, imagining being reunited with Ginny, thinking of ways to remember her, thinking of happy times during pregnancy, thinking of our future family and how Ginny will always be a part of it, thinking of labor and delivery and holding her body, writing this blog, thinking of all the love and support we’ve received, thinking of how God is using our loss for good, thinking of all I have learned through this, thinking about all our love. Some of these thoughts still make me sad and cry, but the results of processing them are love, peace, and joy. I have to process all my grief and emotions, but I am deliberate about what I let control my thoughts. I have a choice to believe the truth or lies. I choose the truth. 

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Yep. Identity crisis – that’s the perfect way of describing it. I was going through an identity crisis even before we lost Ginny. I think everyone goes through a bit of this before becoming a parent. Your role changes and you have to come to terms with that. 

Anytime there is a role change, you grapple with it until you realize this new you. I remember graduating college and realizing I was no longer a student. I had been a student since I was 4 years old! Who am I if I’m not a student? I remember crying on the first first-day-of-school that I wasn’t going to school. I felt so silly because I had achieved my goals. But still I was not longer who I had been, and I had to figure out my new self… an engineer, a professional, an adult. 

It didn’t take long for me to feel myself in this new role. In reality, it wasn’t too far off from what I had always done. It was just another way to achieve. I had performed in school. Now I would do the same in the workplace. I even still wore a backpack and carried a lunch pail (they don’t tell you when you’re a kid that you will pretty much do that your whole life). I excelled in my new role as an engineer, and I put my all into it. I put all my energy into it. 

After several years, Daniel and I realized we wanted more than just work. We wanted someone else to love, someone to show the world. This shift in priority shook me. I knew I didn’t want to be a power-house executive business leader while raising a child. I needed to sacrifice my future professional potential. That’s the reality, and I knew there was nothing wrong with it. I knew it would be worth it. I had just been trained through all the years to achieve all I could professionally. I had defined myself as an engineer. It was my identity. What would this new me look like?

Once I quit my stressful job to prepare for Ginny, I had to understand who I was outside of my career. I was a mother. I was going to be a stay-at-home-mom. This seemed so unreal to me. So much outside what I had done. My life couldn’t be about performance or achievement – it would need to be about service and love. I struggled when people asked me what I did. “Well my degrees are in industrial engineering, but…” Why did I have to qualify that? Why do I need people to know I was an engineer? Pride.

I started putting my all into this new motherhood role. I read books, watched videos, took classes. I got everything ready. I was rebuilding my identity in this new world. I put my all into Ginny – my body, my mind, my emotions, my time, my future, my potential. I had just come to terms with this new me. I was excited and ready. 

Then February 25, 2019 happened. On that day my world came crashing down. I lost my daughter, and I lost my future. My new identity was gone. My old identity was gone. 

All the plans I made for Ginny and for our family were thrown away – out of my reach and control. It is an understatement to say it was a humbling experience. 

So much goes into your identity: your purpose, your self-worth, your character, your pride. When you lose your identity, it is like the floor is coming out from below you. What do I believe? How can I be sure of anything? What is going on? Who am I?

The loudest question for me was what do I do? I remember asking that in the hospital. Daniel would eventually go back to work in his lab. Would I be left in the empty house alone? That sounds terrifying. And I can’t even think about going back to a job where people are stressing out about seemingly meaningless things. I can’t live like that after this! What am I supposed to do?!

The near-term answer was grieve. I would spend days at the library reading and writing. I would wander around UNC campus listening to music and hiding my tears. I felt that was what I was supposed to be doing. During those walks, I asked myself, “Who am I? How would I define myself now? What is my new identity?” I knew I didn’t want my grief to define me. It would be part of me forever, but it can’t be who I am. I had no answers to those questions. 

I eventually brought it to God. I felt so strongly that God was telling me that I am not my career, or my motherhood, or my relationships, or my performance. I am a child of God, and I am loved. He showed me that I love Ginny, not because of anything she did, but because she is my daughter. She came from me and Daniel and our love. I will love her always because of who she is. On a much larger scale, God loves me because of who I am. I came from him and his love. I am his daughter; therefore, he loves me. The same is true for you. 

I can have confidence in that. I can put my identity in that. When all other things fall apart, that holds true. 

These days I’m still reading and writing and grieving, but I’m also volunteering and searching for a job where I can help people going through hard times. I feel like I should be doing something helpful and meaningful. I don’t care if I am called “engineer”. That’s no longer where I put my self-worth. I am who He says I am. 

During my pregnancy, I remember telling friends how epic pregnancy was. My whole world had shifted. I didn’t feel like myself at all. I felt like someone totally different. It wasn’t the physical symptoms that were so unexpected. In fact, I remember thinking that being pregnant felt like how I imagined being pregnant would feel. It was the emotional and mental changes that shook me. I was constantly aware of how monumental this task was. To build a human being. Not only any human being but one that I love so so much…Ginny!

Daniel can attest to how unlike myself I was. I would cry at almost anything. I would get frustrated when I cried because it threw off the cool, level-headedness that I convinced myself I sported for years. I was always so amazed at what was happening inside me, how she was moving and growing and listening to us. Anytime we were sitting on the couch, I had my shirt up and was feeling and watching for movement. I was never not impressed by it.  

I was always thinking about it. Thinking about being pregnant, thinking about being a mom, thinking about what else I could do to prepare. Going out and about made me even more aware. People would stare at me and smile. People would tell me congratulations and ask how far along I was. 

The experience blew my mind. It was epic. It was all consuming. 

That’s why it baffles me how everyone acts like it’s so normal. I see these families with multiple kids just walking around, acting like it’s no big deal. You created life!! How is that so normal? But it is normal. People do it everyday. Most people have kids. A large portion of the population has experienced this. It is so crazy! How did I know so little about it?! 

Similar to grief, there was so much more to pregnancy than I knew. This is a common life experience, yet you can never truly understand it unless you go through it. But how are people not making a bigger deal out of it?

I went from spending nearly every minute thinking about how pregnant I was to spending nearly every minute thinking about how unpregnant I was. I was amazed at how quickly I physically went back to normal. It was only a few days after birth before I realized, “Wow I haven’t been this physically comfortable in a long time”, “Wow I can climb the stairs without getting out of breath”, “Wow I slept through the night for the first time in months.” Our bodies are incredible.

I feared going into public and being asked how far along I was. To prevent this, I wore a postpartum waist trainer, girdle-type thing I found at Target. It helped flatten my stomach so hopefully I could avoid those questions. Thankfully it worked. 

Even though my belly wasn’t making me self-conscious in public, my grief was. It felt like I was walking around with something on my face. Surely I’m acting weird. I don’t feel normal. I wished we still lived in a time when people wear all black or an armband to signify their mourning. That way people will know why I’m acting weird. Am I acting weird? I would get offended when store clerks would smile and say, “Hello, how are you?” How am I?! How could you even ask that?! Can’t you see I am in intense pain?!! But I would politely smile back and say, “I’m fine. How are you?” I hated myself every time I did. How could I act like everything is normal?

In the first few weeks after our loss, I would panic every time I saw a pregnant woman. I wanted to run up to her, grab her, and say, “Get the baby out now!!” I knew it was irrational. The baby is better off in the womb until the due date, but I couldn’t help but want to prevent what happened to Ginny from happening to anybody else. Since then I no longer panic, but I do seem to see pregnant women everywhere. Look at her over there just chatting…like everything is normal. 

Being a parent seems evasive to me. I know it is much more so for people who struggle with infertility and are unable to get pregnant at all. For me, it seems holding my own child stays at an arm’s reach. Even after nearly 8 months of carrying my baby in my belly, it is still at an arm’s reach. Sitting here writing this, I see another pregnant woman. I’m sure she will be holding her living baby in a matter of weeks. Perfectly expected, perfectly normal. Am I missing something?

There is nothing more meaningful to me than someone telling me they are thinking of, missing, or remembering Ginny. What parents who have lost want more than anything is for their child to be remembered. I thought I would want to forget this whole painful experience, but that’s not the case. I don’t want to forget anything. I love her too much to forget anything. 

Never be afraid to bring her up to me. Don’t be afraid to use her name. Call her Ginny, call her Virginia Hope, just please call her. You aren’t reminding me of something painful. You are reminding me of who I love. And I’m probably already thinking of her anyway.  

I’m not sure what made us decide to share her sex and name to friends and family right when we found out. I think we were just eager to share her. We couldn’t keep her to ourselves. We wanted everyone to know her; I’m so glad we did. Daniel and I are blessed by friends who said we inspired them to share their baby’s name early. They want everyone to know their baby before birth the way they knew Ginny. 

People knew her name and knew of her garden-themed nursery. Family and friends kept their eyes open at stores for felted veggies, a print of a little garden bunny, and a garland of carrots. As spring drew nearer, it became much easier to spot cute items. One of my favorites is the set of three pots my sister Keri bought her. The pots read “You” “Grow” “Girl”. It was too perfect for Keri to pass up. Things still catch my eye at the store – at first I would feel a sharp pang in my heart. Now I think of it as a little smile from Ginny. 

Most all of my favorite pregnancy memories are of feeling Ginny move. Feeling that little flutter in the 2nd trimester. It was such a crazy feeling to know that there was a little person inside me with her own muscles and brain, moving independently from me. She was stretching, fidgeting, and turning on her own. It was mind-blowing to see those movements during ultrasounds. Is that really all happening inside me? 

It was obvious when she developed the ability to hear. Any loud noise or music would make her move like crazy. I remember when we saw Fantastic Beasts in theaters. Ginny started flipping during a loud action scene. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and tell Daniel right away. A couple weeks later we went to a Greek restaurant with friends. Festive music started playing and people got up to dance shoulder to shoulder. Ginny also started dancing! During doctor’s appointments, the sound of the doppler would startle her. I remember a doctor saying, “Hey baby girl, don’t kick the doctor!” The doctors would say she was very active and healthy to respond to the doppler so much. 

Every time I felt Ginny hiccup (which was often), I would text Daniel. I’d type “Hiccups 🥰”, and Daniel would respond with a heart emoji. When he was home with us, I would grab his hand and place it on my belly. He smiled so big anytime he felt her. Sometimes we would fall asleep with his hand on my belly. Daniel would kiss us both goodbye in the morning, “Bye bye Ginny. I love you!” He wanted her to learn his voice. 

I want to bottle up all those memories and carry them with me everywhere. I would give anything to carry Ginny in my belly for one more minute. I wish I had savored every single moment as if it was the last because eventually it was. 

This makes me so grateful for the time I still have with others I love. I can still savor every moment with Daniel, my parents, my sisters, my in-laws, my friends. I plan on it. I plan on making as many memories as I can with everyone I love. In case I lose them or they lose me, we will always have those memories to hold. 

Please feel free to share any memory you have of Ginny or someone else who is no longer here. I want to document as many of those special memories as we can!

Over half a dozen of my Facebook friends have had babies since Ginny was stillborn. We were pregnant together. Another dozen are currently pregnant. We are in that phase of life – babies everywhere. It is an exciting time. Again I’m faced with more emotions than I know how to handle. I truly am happy for them. I hate the thought that Daniel and I would be left out of sharing in the excitement and love of new life. Life is even more precious to us now, and we want to be part of it. I know friends and family are unsure how to approach us. They kindly don’t want to flaunt their babies or pregnancies. But we end up feeling left in the dark, isolated. We need people; we need living babies to give us hope. I need to hold and love a baby. It really does help. Could I hold yours for a while? I may weep… it’s out of love, I promise. 

I really am happy for them, but I am also heart wrenched. Some days, one scroll through social media is enough to make me break down. Is it jealousy? Maybe, but it doesn’t feel like any jealousy I’ve felt before. I think it just reminds me of what I am missing. I was supposed to have that joy. I was supposed to take monthly pictures of a baby squirming on a numbered blanket. I cry to my mom, “Everyone else gets their baby! Why don’t I get my baby?!” She calmly answers, “No, not everyone gets their baby. You don’t know how many have lost.” 

That’s true. Since posting about Ginny, several women have messaged me telling about their losses. According to the March of Dimes, around 10-15% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage and 1% end in stillbirth. That means your family, your close friends, your coworkers have all likely been affected by baby loss. We don’t talk about it. Rule of thumb – wait 12 weeks until you announce. You don’t want to have to share your miscarriage! I followed the rule. I thought I was in the clear. 

I’m glad I was too pregnant to keep it a secret. I can’t imagine suffering alone. I can’t imagine keeping this to ourselves. I was changed the moment I was pregnant. I was changed again the moment I found out Ginny passed. I can’t hide that change. I can’t keep my daughter’s life and death a secret. I’m so grateful that others knew and loved Ginny. 

No judgement to anyone who has kept it secret – you are stronger than I am. If you have lost, I’m so sorry. If you’ve lost and you felt alone, I’m so sorry. You are not alone. You have loss parents all around you, moms and dads missing their children. So many of us have ultrasound pictures folded in drawers, empty Christmas stockings, and precious dates on the calendar, unknown to others. You are not alone. Call or message me; I’m happy to listen.

If you know of someone who has lost a baby, no matter how early or late, please reach out to them. Tell them you are sorry. This sucks. Tell them you don’t know what to say. Don’t try to make them feel better. Just mourn with them, and let them hold your baby and weep… it’s out of love, I promise.