Still grieving

In the last few weeks two of my friends have had miscarriages, the most recent one today at 12 weeks into the pregnancy. My heart aches for them. It's made me think of my own miscarriages and I've been surprised that I still have tears left to shed for them.

Part of me is sensible and pragmatic. I know the facts. Miscarriage is usually a fluke and for the best. The embryos most likely had serious chromosome faults and simply couldn't survive. It's no one's fault.

Then there's the other part of me, the mother part, that just feels the loss. It's a strange kind of grief because I haven't lost someone that I knew. I have no memories, no keepsakes. I grieve for a dream. For something that might have been. I mourn for the child and I also grieve for the chance to know him or her. To hold them. To smell them. To know if they liked music, if they looked like me or Jason.

There's also a terrible sense of failure that can go with a miscarriage. As a parent your first concern is protecting your children from harm. To know that the tiny beginnings of a baby couldn't survive inside of me, in the most protective environment that I have to offer, that feels like failing them at the first hurdle and in the worst possible way.

I've cried a lot tonight. For my friends, for myself and for the little souls that didn't quite make it. Tomorrow I'll feel better. It's been almost five years since my miscarriages and today I've been surprised how much sadness I still have for those losses. Most days I don't even think about it anymore and in January, on the date when the first child would've been born, this year for the first time I didn't stop and calculate how old they would've been and imagine what they might've been like. I'm too busy with the children that I do have and I'm so grateful that I have them.

Tonight I'm thinking about my friends who are at the beginning of this awful grief. I know that eventually they'll make peace with it as I have but my heart goes out to them tonight.