Nan:

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Like everyone else has already said, what you are feeling is normal. The pain does not ever go away entirely, as I am learning from older women who have lost babies decades ago. But, as someone who suffered a loss in January of 2004, I can tell you that the loss gets woven into the threads of your life, and it becomes manageable and somehow accepted as a part of your history and present and future.

In a little while, you will have a day where you experience laughter, maybe only for a short time in that first day. For a bit, the majority of your time will be heavy and feel very sad. But, little by little, you will move from being mostly heavy and sad to being mostly outside of the grief with rare hits. It does take time, but I promise you that things will get much better with time.

Others have also made some excellent recommendations. Getting counseling is one of those good suggestions; another is the possibility of taking an anti-depressant. An anti-depressant will not eliminate your grief, but it will help you to remain open to the other experiences that life will continue to provide to you and may help you to get past the initial horrific pain that you are going through right now.

In the coming months, it may help you to know that family and friends will likely want to put their grief and hurt over this loss behind them and it may feel like your grief is being shoved aside and that nobody wants to listen to your pain. This is also a normal reaction from others who are not going through the grief. I mention this to reassure you that everyone here has also experienced this reaction to one extent or another. Sharing the grief with others who have gone through this is so important because no one here will ever encourage you to "move on" or "get over it" or "stop re-living" the loss. You can count on the women here to understand the need to discuss the loss and the hurt and to offer support. This is truly a special group of women.

Please know that none of us wants to have membership on this site, and that all of us are blessed by the community of compassion and acceptance that we find here. While I am sorry that you belong here, I extend a warm welcome to you and assure you that nothing you say here will shock or surprise any of us.

I wish that there was some way to remove all of your grief and lift this process off of your shoulders. If I could hug away your loss, I would. Instead, I will promise you that it gets easier.

Cat w/3 Kittens
Caidan, Carina and Caeleigh
Born at 31 weeks, 1/8/04.
It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. In memory of Carina, who was greatly loved.