The Unspeakable Spoken

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile now, but things have been incredibly busy lately. It felt somehow appropriate as we approach the three-year anniversary of our son Gibson’s birthday and subsequent passing to take a few minutes to reflect on this current season of both life and loss.

I’m so happy to share the news that we welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world a few months shy of a year ago now. Alive. And well. And precious in her unique, every little way. For anyone following along with our story, you know how truly BIG this feels. It is simultaneously wonderous… and at times, terrifying.

To bring a child into the world is to inherently hope. You believe, you want, you build, you fight, you protect, and you care. Hope is incredibly resilient, but it also feels dangerous at times. Especially when you’ve been hurt by hoping before. Pregnancy after loss requires living on a knife’s edge, moving forward with optimism, while carefully guarding what is left of your now decidedly raw and open heart.

Turns out, parenting after loss is much the same.

I’m not sure exactly what I expected to feel once our little girl arrived. And to be completely honest, I’m still not always capable of identifying it. It’s an incredibly wide range and mix of emotions that are intertwined and yet distinct in so many ways. The oppositional nature of carrying both deep joy and deep sorrow at once is also challenging to adequately articulate.

Our little love brings a beautiful whirlwind of chaos, joy, and euphoria to life every single day. There is so much goodness in her little shrieks and squeals of laughter that it is contagious and effervescent. Your heart feels as if it will explode with even just a single millisecond of additional cuteness. It is joy personified. 

And yet, with every ordinary day, milestone achieved, family tradition established, or new experience shared, we are that many more moments removed from the days we last held our other babies. It is impossible not to wonder, imagine, or yearn for what should also be. It is an expansion and a contraction, an inhalation of the present and an exhalation of the past.

My grief, while perhaps less sharp, carries a different kind of nuance and depth when it makes itself known. A keen awareness: firsthand knowledge versus unrealized imagination about all that we lost. Each precious and beautiful moment of everyday life with my daughter is also a reminder of what we’re missing. These moments of grief flicker in and out of the daily flow of joy we experience during parenthood.

Recently, we were at a birthday party for a friend’s daughter and I began chatting with one of the other parents in attendance. The typical parent small talk ensued. “Is she crawling?” “Does she have any teeth yet?” Until we finally arrived at the much-discussed topic of sleep.

 “Is she sleeping through the night yet?” He asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Most of the time she does! She started doing that on her own around four months old.”

“Oh my goodness. You are SO lucky that your first one sleeps through the night that easily.”

BAM. Gut punch. “Your first one.” My insides shattered into a million little pieces, again. Without warning, I am wrenched out of the present and hurled into the past. Inhale… exhale. Inhale… exhale.

Many times, I feel compelled to clarify or explain our situation by saying something like, “Well actually, she’s not my first child.” Cue awkward and painful exchange given that the average person is completely ill-equipped to receive that kind of heavy news from a stranger.

But there are other moments, and this was one of them, where retreating to gather up the scattered remnants of my heart becomes the priority. I simply withdraw from the conversation and turn inward, wrapping all my very big and complicated feelings into a much-needed proverbial hug.

This nuanced journey of parenting after loss is not for the faint of heart.

I can say though, with utter confidence, that it is impossible to take a single day with our little girl for granted. Every fussy day, sleepless night, or overwhelming moment is a gift that we fought damn hard to even have a chance at experiencing. Every second that we are lucky enough to watch her grow is an incredible privilege. One that I understand is neither a right nor a guarantee, but a gifted privilege. I pray that our beautiful little girl feels the immense love that we carry for her. Because for all the pain I’ve experienced over the last few years, I like to say that she is worth all the risk.

Her arrival into the world did not erase our pain. But it does change and morph it. The capacity of our hearts to carry such a broad and expansive range of emotions continues to surprise us. This deep joy and deep sorrow do, in fact, coexist. One cannot replace or usurp the other. The two must live side by side, each carrying such important and precious insights. The combination of these opposing forces is now forever part of my story.

While our scars may be deep, I believe that they offer our family a more textured and nuanced perspective of what this beautiful life offers… and the preciousness of all that we are given.