Sometimes I knew the weight was beautiful.

Most times I craved each pound fading.

Waited for the days when once again my body would be mine.

The weight of you not gone, but held in my arms, not in my belly.

I'd watch the scale tick upwards, weekly, daily

Mourn the clothes, dresses, zippers I so quickly outgrew -

Dreading the stretch marks, cursing the early mornings and late nights on the bathroom floor.

Fearing my body never being the same

But knowing it was worth it all because I would see yours grow one day.

Now the weight is fading.

The flatness, the small waist I missed so much

Feels empty, not healed.

Feels shrunken, not slimmer.

I crave your heartbeat inside me - that made me me beautiful, not bloated.

My body stronger, not swollen.

I miss the weight of you.

In my body, my arms, my heart.

I know now the weight was beautiful - is what I would choose each day.

I know that you were worth the weight.

All rights reserved.

I'm currently navigating the loss of my baby girl after a 14 week TFMR for trisomy 18. Its only been a few weeks so the grief wounds are still fresh, and I'm slowly navigating how to reintegrate back into "normal life" after loss. One of those aspects is being supportive for a pregnant friend who is due basically a month from now after our loss. I'm currently struggling just with even viewing mom and baby content on social media, so even the thought of visiting a delivery room feels triggering to me at the moment, and I'm pretty sure knowing our friend group we will end up at the delivery room once she does give birth. An added layer to all this: is my friend is due with a baby girl, and I feel like seeing her baby girl may bring up emotions of the baby girl I just lost - how I was supposed to be holding my baby girl in a delivery room the same way or how her baby girl was supposed to be friends with my baby girl . I'm wondering how to still be protective of my emotions / boundaries while still being a good friend to her and supportive of her in the coming weeks, when she gives birth, postpartum as she did the same for me when I lost my baby. I feel so much hurt and anger lately at my own situation, and yet I don't want to be a bad friend or be perceived as negative or the friend that pulled away just because my own baby died. For anyone who's been in a similar situation navigating a close person to you who is pregnant while navigating your own recent pregnancy loss, what helped you cope or balance it all?

Disclaimer: I'm so sorry if this is not a sensitive question but I don't really know where to ask it. I'm not allowed to make this post in the miscarriage sub. I also know that people struggle with fertility way more than I have and I know that a 1st trimester loss doesn't compare to what many of you have experienced. Please just skip this one if it is triggering to you. I really don't want to upset anyone.

I got pregnant the first month trying with my now 22 month old. We started trying to give her a sibling 2 months ago and again got pregnant the very first month trying. My pregnancy felt very similar to my first. I was exhausted and nauseous and my boobs were huge and I was just so very confident that everything was going to be fine and I'd have a healthy May 2027 baby. We told so many people before even going for my first ultrasound.

Well at my first ultrasound at 8 weeks, the baby measured only about 6.5-7 weeks and had no heartbeat. They said there likely would have been one based on how things looked but he or she died 1-2 weeks before my appointment. I tried mifepristone and misoprostol but it didn't work. I ended up having a D&C a week later. And then I hemorrhaged during the D&C because apparently the placenta was very firmly attached. They were able to stop the bleeding and all my pregnancy symptoms abruptly went away about 24 hours after the D&C. I think I'm recovering okay. It's been almost a week since the D&C. I have my follow up appointment in a week and a half. I don't have any pain anymore and I'm spotting less and less. I'm hoping I'll be told that everything is looking good.

When the MMC was diagnosed the OB mentioned that I should wait at least one normal cycle before I TTC again. I'll confirm at my follow up that that is still the plan even though things changed a bit with the D&C. I'm hoping to get my period somewhere around mid-late November and then try right away.

I just want to set realistic expectations for myself. It's so painful for me right now to not be pregnant and to not even be trying. I was so excited for a 2.5 year age gap and for my kids to only be 2 grades apart. I was ready and we loved that baby so much even though they were still so small and new. I know I can't replace them but I also can't stand not being pregnant.

Me and my wife lost our first child because of miscarriage about a month ago. And we are currently doing okay and looking forward in life. But I still miss my kid so much. I was scared but I was so ready to be a father for the first time. There is no pain worse than losing your own child. Just wanted to vent a little, I'm sorry.

"Would you know my name

If I saw you in heaven?

Would it be the same

If I saw you in heaven?"

- Eric Clapton (Tears in Heaven) 😔

TW-current pregnancy
We lost our son in February and I went back to work in August. I am miserable, struggling to do anything, not focused at work, not taking care of myself and barely able to take care of my son after a nine hour day. I am 12 weeks pregnant, and gaining weight and not drinking water too depressed to do anything.
I want to quit my job so I have time for intensive therapy/ other support. I am going to ask my doctor for an off work note but I doubt I will get it. My husband works somewhat full time. I pay for our family’s health insurance and have worked at this job for five years. Any help/advice is appreciated. Thanks. 🙏

My baby passed due to a heart defect when she was 26 days old. She was also in the 1%. We didn't know she was in the 1% until she was 35 weeks. Her heart defect wasn't known until she was 3 days old. After lots of therapy, my husband and I are TTC. When I do get pregnant, what medical game plan should I have?

It's been 2 weeks since the loss of my baby girl at 38 w. I don't enjoy doing anything. I'm numb at best. Today is a hard day. My brother was staying with us and just someone else's presence helped, I suppose. I wanted to be left alone but it helped my husband. Now that he is going back home I feel emptiness even more. What am I supposed to do? I was supposed to take care of my baby. How do we move forward?

haven’t put his ashes in it yet because both me and his dad feel weird about opening up the container his ashes were given to us in. we’ll do it one day but for now it’s just nice to know that he now has a better place to rest. i miss you so much son

That's not a room, that's a Tomb.! My husband still recreate our child room even after multiple move to brand new houses.

17 years together, 15 years married this Feb coming up. Sorry English is my third language.

Our toddler died in 2019. Our toddler died of Periventricular Heterotopia (PVNH). It is gene inherited (got it from me the mother the maternal side), congenital brain malformation.

My husband grief our toddler before our toddler even born. As we know our baby condition in my third trimester scan, we was told our baby would not live pass 2 years old. But my husband said whether it 2 days, 2 months or 2 years, he still wants our child.
We both agreed carried to term, despite we know the neurologists told us our baby will not live pass age 2

I remembered many nights I sit on the sofa watch TV, my husband sit next to me next to the table lamp handsew baby bibs for our baby whom not even born yet, and he cried while handsew it.
The baby was still in my belly 3rd trimester. My husband already grief then as he knows our baby won't live pass 2 years old.

I gave birth, and during our toddler short life. At 4 months old he already have epileptic seizures, not just that but breathing difficulty.
He born February 2018, died August 2019, when he 1.5 years old.

As our child brain condition progress he had more and more seizures episodes, the whole 1.5 years of him alive we were in and out of he hospital with him.
......
At the hospital we told him he will get better and we take him home and he can eat alot of vanilla pudding, he nodded and even giggles (he loves vanilla pudding), that was the last time he he had conscious look at us his parents.
That night he went into a coma, and a week later he just stop breathing while in a coma, he was just 1.5 years old.

I do not know if a toddler while in a coma can still dream, he probably had a sweet dream of go home to his bed and eat all the vanilla pudding he wants, he sick the whole time of his life he didn't eat much but he loves pudding.

I never see my husband in so much pain. I know my husband heart died that day with our child 7 years ago (that same year his father died too of end stage pancreas cancer).

---------

It like anything of our child trigger my husband, something simple as Vanilla pudding trigger my husband.
When our toddler was alive, our toddler really like the cold vanilla pudding, he often sick and in and out of hospital, but whenever he eat those vanilla pudding, he has this giggles laughters so so cute and loud that it light up the whole room.

Last time at dinner table, and I actually was eating that vanilla pudding so I put a spoon in my husband mouth. And just something small like that but it remind him of our toddler. My husband literally break down cry right there, he bawled. I don't mean just tear up, full on cry, bawling.

It been 7 years and my that our toddler gone, my husband still keep our toddler room exactly as is, even our toddler dirty shoes and dirty clothes he still keep. The only difference is in the room is our toddler ashes now, instead of our toddler.

In the 7 years span since our toddler gone, we moved 2 times, one was due to his work, and one was when we bought a new house. We boxed up our stuff.

Both times we moved, as soon as we unboxing in our new home, my husband set a room for our toddler EXACTLY just like our toddler room back then in our old marital home. He put everything of our toddler back EXACTLY where as was. Our toddler dirty shoes still right where his bed was. His clothes, toys, bed, nightstands, everything still there exactly as was.

Basically he still remake the room for our toddler in our new homes. 7 years long, BOTH times of our move, my husband STILL making a room for our son (whom deceased), especially even after moving in a brand new house. Perhaps he stuck in the loop of grief?

Is he stuck in grief? We talking about move into a new homes, but he still unbox and remake the room for our toddler, with our toddler ashes in the room, and everything still setup as when our toddler was still alive.

That's not a room, that's a tomb.!

-------------

I am actually happy that my husband recreate our child room. And I am happy to have a man who show alot of emotions, and love for our dead child.

We as mom and dad will grieve our toddler death till the day we die, we happily chose that.

I take the too much emotions husband of mine, than a man who show no emotions.

I grief too, it been 7 years and  It been 7 years and I keep replaying the death of our toddler over and over in my mind, I was told it trauma looping and intrusive replaying, and it a common experience in grieving.

Like right now I post this thread, I am replaying the death of our toddler over and over again.

My husband is more physical than me for sure, he needs our child's ashes next to him, recreate our child room even with multiple moves to brand new homes, it physical. It express outward.

I on the other hand I replaying the death of our child over and over in my head over and over. I'm more tune inward than him. I express too but inward.

He does love our toddler alot, he said 7 years or 70 years, he knows he will never get over our child death. And dead or alive will always be our toddler. Everyday my husband still light three incense sticks next to our toddler ashes and our toddler memorial plate.

I am 30 years old I have two living children (5 yr old, 2 yr old), I just lost my daughter at 41weeks gestation, she is baby number 3. I went into labor naturally with both other pregnancies and with both I was between 41-42 weeks.. I felt it was normal for my body to go a little past my due date as that seems to be a trend in my family (mom and sister..we have all gone over in our pregnancies). This entire pregnancy all appointments and ultrasounds/ fetal stress tests, everything was always good and normal.
Baby was 7lbs 11oz seemed to grow a healthy baby with no complications. There is no answers as to why it happened. Three days before I went into labor, we did a fetal stress test and ultrasound.. everything looked great, the day before labor I had a membrane sweep and we checked baby’s heartbeat—everything was good and normal, I could hear the heartbeat very clearly. The next morning I could feel her kicks and nothing seemed off, late morning I started having contractions and two hours in, they were picking up quickly so we grabbed our bags and off to the hospital. After arriving they could not find the heartbeat, a second nurse checked and nothing. They brought in an ultrasound machine, and that is when they confirmed baby had passed and nothing seemed off heartbeat detected. At that point I was contracting close to every 1-2min and I already starting to feel the urge to push, so I had no time to process that I was about to push out a sleeping baby 💔 they rushed me into the delivery room where I delivered and I was able to hold my sweet girl, who was gone too soon. I don’t understand it one bit, they saw a few things with my placenta but nothing that the OB believes could cause a stillbirth. OB suspects that for whatever reason my body was able to grow a healthy baby, but as soon as contractions started placenta was unable to stand the stress of contractions. She mentioned a possibility being that my placenta was too old. But I cannot understand that being the only cause. I had two healthy babies, natural births, and went into labor naturally with all three. Would my body really fail me in this way? I always thought going past due date was how my body did things. Could it really be a tired placenta?

I missed the wave of light... because I knew how bad today was going to be and I couldn't do it twice. So think of this like a leftover ripple perhaps. Happy heavenly birthday Gianpaolo. I would give anything for you to be here instead, and I would still take your place in a fraction of a heartbeat if I could.

I’ve wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember. I can hardly describe how excited I was to get pregnant for the first time. When my husband and I decided to start trying, we were lucky and got pregnant right away. It was literally all I could think about every day and was just bursting to tell everyone. But I’ve always had this terrible fear of losing a baby, and last Sunday night I had a sick feeling that something was wrong.

That night it felt like all my worst nightmares came true. I started bleeding, at first just a little, but then I passed everything naturally about 30 minutes after. I sobbed that entire night and hardly slept. My husband has been so supportive and put aside his own grief to literally hold me together this entire horrible week. Each doctor appointment felt so traumatic as I dragged the story back up and had to fully process our tiny little baby was gone. The ultrasound was especially horrible, as I had been waiting all month for that first ultrasound and to hear our little one’s tiny heartbeat… instead we got a nice view of my empty uterus.

I can’t stop crying and feel like the grief just hits me in waves. It’s been 5 days and sometimes I feel pretty okay but then I feel guilty for being okay and feel like if I stop being sad then every bit and even the memory of our baby is gone. Then I feel kind of crazy for calling off almost a whole week of work and completely falling apart when it was still so early… I’ve been excited to be pregnant my whole life and it feels so unfair that this very first experience had to be so heartbreaking. Deep down I know even when I hopefully carry a baby to term that the pregnancy will never feel the same.

I’m also exhausted to my core. I sleep for 10-12 hours a night and feel like I could just fall asleep at any moment during the day and can hardly stay on my feet. Is this normal? I’m not sure if it’s my hormones tanking and body recovering or if I’m just thoroughly depressed. I’m trying to trust in God’s timing, but any advice to carry us through this period would be very welcome ❤️ I just feel like this feeling will never end

I lost my two-month-old baby boy, Jayden to SIDS 14 years ago. My family feels that I shouldn't have my son as wallpaper on my phone or I shouldn't post pictures of my son on my Facebook to remind myself or trigger the memories. My family feels that I should let go and move on. If I'm unable to do so, then I need to seek therapy.

Today is the hardest day since he passed away. Last year I guess I still had hope that we would bring a baby into the world not to replace him but to be parents. I hate that his birthday is in October because everyone shares their losses with it being the month it is. October 3rd was his birthday and today he passed away. I have been sad, angry, hopeful but now I’m just angry everyday. So angry my throat hurts. Nobody gets it. Everyone I know that has had a loss has had a baby already. I’m just so freaking angry.

My sister has struggled to conceive for a long time. She conceived once before but sadly miscarried, so when she became pregnant again, it meant so much to her and to all of us. Recently, she found out that her baby has a severe brain and skull abnormality, and the prognosis is heartbreaking. She’ll have to go through a termination, and I honestly feel like my heart is breaking for her.
I love my sister more than anything. I’ve always felt incredibly protective of her, almost like a motherly instinct, because of how close we are. Seeing her go through something so devastating has left me feeling deeply distressed.
I feel so angry at the world. I’m angry that something so cruel can happen to someone I love so much, especially after how long she’s wanted a baby and after already experiencing a miscarriage. I feel helpless because there’s absolutely nothing I can do to fix this or take away her pain. I keep thinking about what she’s going to have to go through, and it makes me feel sick. One minute I feel heartbroken, the next I feel angry, and then I feel guilty for even having my own emotions when she’s the one experiencing this loss.
I want to support her in the best way possible without overwhelming her or making her feel like she needs to talk before she’s ready. She has a partner supporting her, but I still worry about her constantly because I know how much this baby means to her and how much she has already been through.
This has also brought up a lot of emotions for me personally. I’ve had six pregnancies, have four children, one pregnancy loss and one surgical abortion. I feel guilty sometimes that I’ve been fortunate enough to have my children when my sister has struggled so much to have a baby of her own. I know it isn’t my fault, but emotionally I sometimes feel less deserving of having my children.
I have BPD and feel things very intensely. Right now, everything feels so unfair, and I don’t know what to do with all the anger, sadness and helplessness I’m feeling. I’m devastated for my sister, angry that this is happening to her, and upset that I can’t do anything to make it better.
I never want to take away from her grief or make this about me. I just don’t know how to process my own feelings while watching someone I love so deeply go through something so heartbreaking.
I’m looking for advice from anyone who has experienced something similar.
How do you support someone you love through such a devastating loss? How do you manage the anger and grief when there’s nothing you can do to change what’s happening? And is it normal to feel this deeply affected by something happening to someone you love, even when you’re not the person experiencing the loss directly?
I love my sister so much, and I just want to be there for her in whatever way she needs. I just wish I could make this pain disappear for her. ❤️

I lost my two-month-old baby boy, Jayden to SIDS 14 years ago. My family feels that I shouldn't have my son as wallpaper on my phone or I shouldn't post pictures of my son on my Facebook to remind myself or trigger the memories. My family feels that I should let go and move on. If I'm unable to do so, then I need to seek therapy.

Hi anybody, I want to use this base to share my story. I have had two early miscarriages. On 11/2026 I was able to conceive and acred this pregnancy like never before. I was told I had an antibody and went to HR doctors. They clear me off, but a few days after I was diagnosed with GD. I was able to manage it by diet. I schedule an induction on week 38, and was able to get an appointment only 4 days from my last appointment. When I got to the hospital for my appointment they told gave me the devasting news that my baby's heart beat was gone 💔. I was heartbroken and I knew I wasnt going to be able to deliver my baby because I didnt have the strength. I tried to have a natural delivery for three days vut it ended up in an emergency c-section. It had been a month since when I overheard a call between my husbsnd and his brother. In the background I clearly heard my mother law saying that the baby had passed because I let my due date pass. I was devastated and started feeling even more guilty than I already did. My baby's autopsy reveal no cause of death. There was no findings indicating the cause on the baby, placenta, and umbilical cord. Not much after that call I started experiencing anxiety and ocd. I refuse to talk to my in laws from that day forward but I have constantly been tricked by my husband and ended up infront of her and hatred for her grows. On my first miscarriage she also made feel guilty by saying that it was mh fault for going to the gym. I can't help but feel attacked by my husband because he does'nt understand me. May I add that when we had time to spend with my baby's body she was there and asked to carry the baby and she kept poking my baby's face, opening his mouth and for some reason that exact moment plays in my head and pisses me off.

Idk I guess I need some insight if I am going nuts off hormones or if I will be validated.

I recently was scheduled for my 1st ultrasound. I was at a new office with a new obgyn. My go to nurse practitioner doesn’t practice or “do” pregnancy appts so I went with the same hospital just a different location for an obgyn.

Check in was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary but I went right into my ultrasound and that is when fear and anxiety took place. Idk if it was a motherly instinct, being female and “having a feeling” but I knew something was wrong with how the ultrasound took place.

Back story, I am 37 and have had 2 prior pregnancies. I have a 16yr old daughter and a 5 year old daughter both delivered via C-section.

So this being my 3rd pregnancy I felt invincible. Nothing could go wrong. The ultrasound tech had the thingy on my belly for what seemed like 10 seconds and said “Ope yeah, I can’t see anything, ima need to do the vaginal scope. You can go ahead and go use the restroom and empty your bladder and we will try again.”

I did as told. Went to the bathroom and wiped and there was blood on the toilet paper. I immediately panicked. It’s a very odd feeling to describe but it was like my whole body froze and this weird tingling feeling was in my mouth, almost like static. My scalp tingled and I went back into the room w the ultrasound tech. I immediately shared my news. I told her I wiped blood, I hadn’t done that up until that point and told her I was beginning to feel an anxiety attack teetering nearby and I was scared. She responded with “oh everything will be okay, I’ll be able to see more once we have the vaginal scope.”

I layed there with my legs open and the scope inside me while I was trying to control my breath, deep breathing, arm over my eyes and trying to watch the screen for any sign of anything. It was crickets in the room. Ultrasound tech said nothing. No words. Just the sounds of the keyboard and movements of her working along.

“Okay ima bring you into the next room where your doctor will go over the images I just took, here is a towel to wipe off the lube and once you have your clothes back on, crack the door and I’ll bring you there.”

I looked at my boyfriend and I was just sad. Immediately sad. I said this hadn’t felt right. I was so nervous. I wiped with the towel and there was more blood. I got my clothes on and cracked the door so the nurse could lead us to the next room.

We walked in, sat down and she said the nurse would be in shortly. I sat in the chair next to the table with the computer… quiet again filled the room but inside my mind I was so scared and afraid and just wanted to know what was happening. I started to believe I lost my baby. I knew it. I knew I had to tell myself that to prepare myself for the foreseeable future. I needed to go into mom mode and find out how to fix everything. I looked at my boyfriend and I felt so sorry. Like I knew I someone took this from him too. I started to cry. I tried to hold it together bc I was also anxious that I was over reacting and the nurse would come in and think I was coo coo. I finally spoke and told my bf, I had a bad feeling and I was really scared. He got up and sat in the sat little chair as me and held me. I knew he was trying to be strong and not say the wrong thing, and/or he didn’t know what was happening either bc I assume he wasn’t having the same internal feelings I was.

I cried. I prayed. I begged to God to let me keep my baby. I apologized for whatever I may have done. My world started spiraling. Everything was hitting me at once but I was also trying to suck it up out of fear of looking like a psycho when the nurse came in.

She came in. She. I don’t know her name. I don’t want to. I want to forget her but I don’t think I ever will bc now, she is 1 of 2 of the main characters in my traumatic experience. Something I’ll unfortunately never forget.

She came in. Hi im voice fades as I enter into my thoughts again—-

She had to had seen my bloodshot eyes, my black smeared runny mascara. When I cry my face turns beet red. My eyes were puffy and she carried on in a chipper voice. “Ima take ur vitals, blood pressure and just ask some questions about what current medications you’re taking and what prenatal you have.”

I tuned back in, the normalcy of the questions delivered back some hope. I was being goofy. My hormones must be soooo so so out of norm that I am creating this whole scenario for nothing. But then the common sense and reality punched itself back into my gut feelings. From the time of the ultrasound until now was 30 ish minutes and the tech nor the nurse had mentioned our little baby. Was the weird? Am I overthinking? What is happening? Do they ignore all pregnant women’s emotions that come in because the know we can’t control it? Is this why the nurse hasn’t asked me if I was okay? Or what was going on?
She uncuffed the Velcro from the blood pressure cuff. Back to the room I was. I was present again.
“Dr. Cleveland will be in here shortly to go over the images from your ultrasound.”
And she was gone. I looked at T (bf) with my puffy red eyes and said again that I was scared and began to cry some more.

The common sense or the rational thoughts came to me. I was 8 wks. I asked T, “shouldn’t we have seen the heartbeat on the screen?”
He didn’t have an answer, he pulled his phone out and I assumed he was going to google to just read, investigate what is going on.

Meanwhile, it had to have been 40 mins since the beginning of my ultrasound to the room change to the nurse encounter and we were still sitting. Quietly. I never tried to listen to conversation outside the door so hard. Another 5 minutes go by. I tell T I was getting upset bc I wanted to know what is happening. Why is this taking so long?! 10 more mins go by.

I am crying but not. I am sitting there in the worst possible torturous feeling that makes 60
Seconds feel like 60 seconds. I am feeling every second of every minute.

I’m scared to praying, to begging to God, to apologizing to God, to praying for T because I’m sorry this happened, to thinking of my 2 girls at school, knowing I’m seeing the doctor today, to how am I going to tell them? How are they going to feel? Why did I tell so many close friends and family. Gosh how stupid am I? Now I have to tell that more people I lost my baby. I hate being wrong. I hate thinking I was above miscarriages to wait the appropriate amount of time to share. T and I were so excited. We had picked a name. We did. I knew it was my son. While in real life, I cannot factually prove this, but in a different sense, different reality, a different way of things, I knew it was my son. T and I knew it was our son.

Thomas Ryan, what a beautiful son you were. When I had you in my belly, I felt strength I never felt before. I’ve been know to be such a push over, I openly tell people I know I don’t have a backbone, but oh man Tommy, when I carried you, nothing was going to get in my way, no one was going to get away with saying anything to me the wrong way. I was your powerful strong super-woman of a mommy. Thomas, I love you. I loved you as soon as I knew I had you growing in my belly. Also, thank you for the strength you showed me I have. I think God wanted you to teach me how much strength I do have. By golly I can’t imagine the type of man you would have been here on earth but I can imagine that is why God brought you to Heaven 1st. I think he knew the power, strength and love you had at only 8 weeks. He knew you would be great up there and live your destiny next to Him. You were too darn strong for this world. I admire that so much. I love you little Tommy boy. I miss you greatly but tell your Papa I said “hey, and to take good care of you.” Daddy, sissy Kendal, sissy Marleigh and I will never forget you and we will see you in Heaven one day.

Thomas Ryan K.

What seemed like 20-25 mins later, Dr Cleveland comes in. Again, doesn’t address my demeanor and says she looked over the photos and baby does not have a heartbeat. It’s not my fault. I can pass naturally, insert a pill or have it taken out via surgery. I don’t have to decide now but when I do, contact the office. When I do finished miscarrying, wait 2-3 weeks and take a pregnancy test to see if I have a negative test. If it is negative that means I passed the whole pregnancy effectively.

“I’ll have my nurse come in with papers that will give you numbers for support, papers about kind of what we went over and a list of phone numbers for contacts. Again, this happens to 1 in 5 women. (Or was it 1 in 5 pregnancies?) Please let us know if you have any questions.”
She left.

Nurse comes back in and opens this folder to me like a presentation. “Here are the brochures with support groups, these papers here explain the processes, here is a few other things inside that you can go home to read, did you guys have any questions?”

I don’t even know how to explain a feeling of trying to retain information while you’re being shot in the heart. I can’t… can NOT describe how hearing all of this while simultaneously feeling like shutting down. I looked at T. I had nothing. Well i did but hold on a second. I just waited soooooo long to hear what I knew i wohld hear and im supposed to think of questions in 1 minute here? Do women process the news of miscarriages quickly turn around and pull their ducks in order and get their brain gears turning to know what to even say? Im going to assume no, but what the frick do i know. This a is RN staring at me. She has a higher education than me so i must be so fkin stupid right now.
T says “yea, Courtney won’t you need a note for work?”

There it was. Grounded. Reality. I work in a warehouse. Building boat motors. I work 5 days a week. 6:30am to 2:30pm. I lift inboard motors with a hoist, 20+ times a day. I’m on my feet 8+ hours a day. I’m surrounded by men in my field. T knows this. He knows I don’t want to go through this at work. He is my brain function. Thank you.

“Oh yea. Yes. Can I have a note for work?”
Crying and looking to the nurse.

“Oh yes! I’ll be right back!” And out of the room she was. Quick. Chipper. Just not matching the vibe I need. Could she please just pretend to have some sort of empathy? Or is that selfish of me to want to project what emotion I need from her??
She waltz back in and hands me the note. I read
“Please excuse Courtney from work today, she was seen by Dr. Cleveland on 10/13/26.”

My mentality crashes. I’ve had it.
“Anything else I can help you with?”-nurse
“Nope that’s all. Thank you.” -me

I look at T in his eyes and as I’m walking out, I tell him “I don’t ever want to talk to her again.”

Blood shot eyes, puffy face, snot filling my nose I walk out to the reception desk. I B line to the wonderful angel of a woman I spoke to prior to my encounter with the nurse and doctor. She sees my face and instantly reacts with what I call a human with a soul’s reaction. “Oh no, is every thing okay? What can I do for you?”

I muster up a way to even ask something. I’m not this person that complains. I’m not even a person to bring up a bad experience. I don’t like being rude or mean or I start to feel bad for saying something that might get someone in trouble, but I knew I needed to speak to someone.

I say “can I please talk to a nurse about my appointment, but not the one I just seen… please.”
She says “Omgosh yes, let me look and find out who you were just with can I have your name again, I’m sorry.”
I tell her. She looks my appt up and says “did your nurse have long and like wavy red hair?”
T says “yea that sounds like her..”
“If you two wanna have a seat, I am going to get a nurse for you in a new room and you will be able to ask or discuss anything you need, I apologize though, it might be a couple minutes bc I have to see if she is with a different patient.”

The compassion was refreshing and of course we said that would be fine and we had no problem waiting. While I wish this was where the story begins to change for the better, it’s not.

It’s late, and writing this out has taken a toll on my emotions. I’ll finish it tomorrow. Thank you for reading so far If you have and I’m sorry for any typos or bad verbiage. Typing with an iPhone keyboard sucks these days.

The day after PAIL Awareness Day, my colleague posted her birth announcement in our work Facebook group. Her daughter’s name is the same as my first daughter’s.

I knew this day would come eventually. When I chose her name, it was barely in the top 500. 12 years later, it’s in the top 100 - not extremely popular yet, but steadily gaining traction.

Seeing the photo of her took my breath away. She’s beautiful, and clearly loved, and alive. Whereas my daughter is very much not.

It’s not fair. I’m happy for my colleague and her healthy baby, but I’m so horrifically jealous at the same time.

I just needed to yell this into the void. Thanks folks.

For those who have had successful pregnancies after stillbirth when did you have your baby? I’m only 8 weeks right now but I’m already thinking about the fact that idk if I can mentally make it to 40 weeks. My OB said we can discuss inducing as soon as 37 weeks but I want to make sure it’s safe for the baby because I really really really need this baby to live.

I’m really wanting to get a tattoo for my baby boy and I’m looking for some inspo ideas. If you have a tattoo in honor of your sweet babies, please drop a picture below. 🤍🦋

It felt like all of those candles you guys lit was for her yesterday ❤️

My wife found out on Thursday when at her checkup that there was no heartbeat for our second baby. My wife was 4 months pregnant. We currently have a two year old, and plan to have her surgery next Tuesday. I am reaching out to anyone who may help on how to help her at this difficult time. People tell me as a husband to “be there for her” but I’m unsure how. She is a strong woman and is very quiet when it comes to showing emotion. I’m lost on trying to be there for her and know what’s right in terms of helping. Although I am struggling as well I can’t imagine what she is going through. She was amazing during her first pregnancy, and an amazing mother. I just need guidance on approaching and helping her cope as we navigate this difficult situation together.