After my daughter was born I hated getting the mail. I loathed it, actually. I dreaded walking to the mailbox and flipping through the letters and seeing all the pastel envelopes as they arrived. Diaper brands sent coupons for our new arrival. Insurance companies wanted to know if we had planned for our new bundle’s future. Our favorite department store offered to monogram a blanket, bath towel, spoon, and preschool lunch box with our newborn’s name for just under the cost of one month of daycare.
As much as I wanted to keep her memory alive, as much as I wanted people to say her name and remember her with me, I didn’t need any more reminders from strangers that she wasn’t here any longer.
I tore up this mail more aggressively than necessary and would have happily set it on fire if I’d trusted myself with a lighter at that point. My daughter had died. She wouldn’t be here for another box of diapers or life insurance or a first day of preschool. As much as I wanted to keep her memory alive, as much as I wanted people to say her name and remember her with me, I didn’t need any more reminders from strangers that she wasn’t here any longer.
Seeing fresh pieces of paper with her name on them was a stark reminder that she had been here but now she wasn’t. I’m sure issuing a birth certificate starts the new baby promotional mail rolling. Apparently issuing a death certificate doesn’t stop it.
The loss of a pregnancy or of a newborn is a horribly life-changing event. Many a loss mom will tell you that not only did she lose her baby but she lost touch with friends along the way. How does a new frazzled mama of a non-sleeping newborn offer comfort to a heartbroken mama with empty arms? How does that heartbroken mama not look at her friend without feeling a sense of loss all over again?
The reminders in the mail took me backward every time. Like a bucket of ice water poured over my brain, a diaper coupon could send me right back to the bed it took me way too long to get out of that morning. All I could do in those early days was concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. “Do the next necessary thing,” my therapist would say.
Her advice helped me through that first year, but my knees still buckled daily. It didn’t take much to pop the balloon I had carefully put up around myself so that I could function on a daily basis.
When your baby lives, they come home from the hospital and you stumble through the early days of caring for them. Your body slowly recovers, rearranging itself into a new semblance of normal and your mind follows. Your normal moves: Your baseline in life has shifted to this new place of all-consuming care for another person.
When you lose a baby, there is no recovery timeline. Your body has been stretched and pulled beyond reason and your mind has done the same. Your normal has also moved. It’s been stolen from you. Your baseline in life has shifted to an unimaginable place—a place no parent even wants to think about. The mere thought of the infant you should be caring for can send your whole day spiraling out of control. Things like walking and talking and signing your name become so much work for a grieving mind.
When you lose a baby, there is no recovery timeline. Your body has been stretched and pulled beyond reason and your mind has done the same.
So how do we come together as moms? The mothers of living babies and the mothers of babies who should be here but by some awful twist of fate are no longer with us.
The only way to salvage those friendships, the ones now separated by what’s been gained and what’s been lost, is to be willing to face what has happened head on. We can’t tiptoe around loss or treat it like something to never be spoken about; we have to honor the life of that baby just as we want our living children to be honored.
As a new mom, you expect that anyone you talk to will ask you if you’re getting any sleep. If your baby is eating well and sleeping well and if you have any help around the house. A grieving mom needs the exact same thing. She needs to be asked her baby’s name, if she’s decided on a funeral service or a memorial, if there is anything else she needs to make her life bearable. The only way to truly support someone through loss is to honor what they’ve been through and let them know you’re here for the long haul.
If your heart is in the right place and you’re trying to connect with them soon after their loss, they might not be ready yet. You might be the reminder they’re not ready for yet, your living baby the thing that has snuck up on them that sends them back to bed. In a few weeks or months or sometimes even a year, they will be ready for you again if you keep letting them know you’re there.
The only way to truly support someone through loss is to honor what they’ve been through and let them know you’re here for the long haul.
When you are in the depths of grief you don’t have the mental energy to return phone calls and texts, never mind keeping up your end of a friendship. If you’re a mama trying to hang on to a friendship that’s fading after a friend has experienced her own loss, keep hanging on. Keep calling and sending cards and waiting for that time she’s ready for you again. She will be and she still needs you, she’s just too heartbroken to know it yet.
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