Our oldest son would have been 8 years old last month.

I carried him to a day shy of 39 weeks without complications, and then lost him without warning one night in an emergency C-section. It’s hard to believe that eight years have gone by since that terrible day.

Eight years…four younger siblings…so much life has happened since then. In a lot of ways, it feels like a lifetime ago and we’ve very much moved on from that awful place.

Other times though the pain is still somewhat fresh. It comes out of nowhere in waves, brought on by something that triggers a memory. That happens less and less as time goes on, but I think it will probably always be this way at least a little bit.

There are an absolutely heartbreaking number of women out there who share my story. I hear about them personally far too often. Before we lost our son, I had no idea just how common infant mortality in the United States is. We are lead to believe that once you’re past the proverbial 12-week mark, you’re good to go.

That’s why we don’t expect it when it happens to us. It comes as such a shock. Our world is sent reeling and we just never saw it coming.

One thing is for certain: the memory of the day our son quickly entered, and then exited, this world will always be very vivid in my mind. The grief, the uncertainty, all the questions – the feelings surrounding that day and the subsequent months will never leave me. And that’s why I feel compelled to write this.

For the expectant mother who has just very unexpectedly lost her baby, I write this for you.

As I do, I’m still not sure how much to tell you. I’m not sure when this would cross the line from being encouraging and useful in helping you to prepare, to being just plain overwhelming.

My husband assures me that if you’re here then you’re looking for information, and if you’re overwhelmed then you’ll stop reading. I’m trusting that he’s right — that you know yourself well enough to know where that line is for you personally. With that in mind, I’m just going to put it all out there.

I’ve been where you are. I know the pain – that intense, awful pain that you’re afraid will never go away. I’m writing to you from the other side of that agony in hopes that it will help you feel like you’re not alone and perhaps give a voice to some of the feelings that are overwhelming you right now. More than anything though, I hope that this gives you some sort of peace – a glimmer of hope – in your grief…

 

There’s so much fear when your baby passes away, so many thoughts and questions…so many possibly painful interactions that you don’t anticipate. Below is a list of the experiences I wish someone would have talked to me about.

Holidays

If you’re like me, you’re probably dreading every first holiday that is coming your way – the ones you were expecting your baby to be with you for.

You’re afraid that people will think of you on those holidays and want to talk to you about it.

But you’re also afraid that they won’t.

You’re afraid of the sappy commercials – those damn sappy commercials! Mostly you’re afraid that a normally happy time will be swallowed up in grief and you won’t be able to bear it.

Don’t feel like you have to make a big deal of the holidays this year or engage in them the way you’re used to. Do something different, stay busy — or stay home and just let the days pass. There are no expectations for how you will handle them. These will be difficult days, but it won’t be like this forever.

Your Pregnant Friends

If you have friends and family who have been pregnant along with you, you’re probably afraid that their children will always been a reminder of the hole in your own family. I had SIX friends who were all due within a couple of months of me, including my very best friend. I was terrified that I would never be able to look at those children without thinking of my son.

As those children were born right around the time of our loss, I won’t lie to you – it was hard. I was both happy for my friends and sad at the same time. You will run the gamut of those emotions too.

You will put on a brave face for your friends, but be hurting inside. It might take you a while before you’re ready to spend a lot of time with your friends and their new babies.

Don’t distance yourself forever, but take your time. Ease into it and don’t feel rushed. Your friends will understand.

From my experience, I’m relieved to tell you that meeting those babies wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. Now that my own family has grown and the years have passed, I spend a lot of time with some of those kids and they aren’t even remotely a trigger for me. I don’t see them and think about how big my son would be – they’re just my friends’ kids, and now my living children’s friends.

The Well-Meaning Stranger

It’s the well-meaning stranger who will catch you off guard and I feel I must prepare you for them. They don’t mean to, but they can provide the most unexpected stings to a grieving mother’s heart.

I wasn’t prepared to still look pregnant right after I gave birth. When I went in to the doctor’s office a week after losing our son, I ended up on an elevator with an excited new grandmother and her expectant daughter who gleefully commented on how she couldn’t wait until her daughter was my size and asked how far along I was. I did my best to get off the elevator without bursting into tears and making them feel even worse than they already did when I told them that I was no longer pregnant.

Loose fitting clothing will be your friend and help deter innocent questions.

Acknowledging Your Child

There have been conversations brought up through the years about who in a group of our work friends was the first to start the baby boom and someone else gets that title because they have the oldest living child. The person asking the question wasn’t around when we lost our baby and the others aren’t thinking, or just don’t remember. It’s a small thing, but it’s in those times that it feels foolish or petty to point out that we were the first to start our family. Good grief, I feel petty even writing down that it crossed my mind to care about that! But it’s not about who started something or who gets a moniker. It’s about the fact that our son isn’t acknowledged and the whole thing just feels wrong.

In fact, I wish it wasn’t the case, but the truth is there will be moments that come up fairly regularly for much of your life where you will have to choose whether or not to mention your first child.

Someone will say something like, “you’ve had four pregnancies” and I have to decide whether to correct them and say that I’ve actually had five. People regularly ask me how many children I have and I have to decide whether to give them the easy answer of four, or the truthful answer that I have 4 living children and one in heaven.

I don’t always give the same answer. It just depends on how I feel at the moment and how immediately awkward I feel like making things with a relative stranger.

To be completely honest, it’s awful. When I answer five, I find myself trying to console someone I don’t know well and feeling like I’ve given way too much information about myself. When I answer four, I feel like I’m denying my son somehow. I can’t win.

The main thing I want you to take away from all of that is this: prepare your heart that these things will come up from time to time, and then when they do, react in whatever way feels best to you in the moment.

Answer in the way you feel will sting the least for you. There’s no right way to answer those questions. Eight years later, it still stings a little every time, but it doesn’t take my breath away like it did in the beginning.

Your Future Children

The biggest fears and questions of all though, have to be those surrounding future children. You wonder if you’ll be able to have healthy children, or children at all. Even if you’re told that your loss was the fluke and not something that is even remotely like to happen twice, you still wonder and worry. At least I did.

Someone said to me, “you will never be innocently pregnant again” and that’s true. The risks and dangers are always there for all pregnancies, but if you never experience them, they always seem so remote.

I do hold my breath with every pregnancy, but it gets easier every time and you’re going to find the same to be true for you. Unless you’ve already found out otherwise, you will likely have very normal pregnancies after this. While you too will hold your breath, you will find that it gets easier and the anxiety will fade a little more with every healthy new babe born into your family.

That said, whether you are able to have children biologically in the future or not — whether born from you or from someone else — you will hold your babies one day and not be able to imagine your life without them. For us, losing our first son changed our baby timeline altogether and every child we have now is one we wouldn’t have had if we hadn’t lost him. I would NEVER choose to lose him, but I love my living children so much — I truly can’t imagine my life without them in it.

I don’t believe in “fate” or “God’s will” for these sorts of things so I don’t know how to explain it, but I know that these are the kids I was meant to raise on this earth. They complete me in every possible cheesy way you can take that phrase. :)

Take heart. You will have those feelings in the near future.

It’s all just really hard right now and I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this. It’s a horrible thing for any parent to bear. It was the worst moment of my life losing him, but with some time and space, I can see the good that has come from that terrible time.

You can be sure that no one is more grateful for their children than we are because of our experience. I think it’s made us more patient with them — made us focus on them more and treasure and appreciate them more on a daily basis.

You can look forward to all of that.

Grieving

While you wait for that day though, please let the people you love know what you need. They want to be there for you, but not everyone will know how.

For me, I wanted distraction during the day so that I could put everything out of my mind until I was able to grieve privately with my husband each night. Some friends wanted to sit with me and pray or talk it out, but it wasn’t how I wanted to grieve. I declined and luckily they respected that. You may want the opposite — just tell your loved ones how they can help.

However you’re feeling is ok. Everyone grieves differently and that’s ok too. Don’t feel like you have to appease anyone else’s desires.

Try to take care of yourself as best you can, and trust that things will get better.

 

Eight years after losing my son, life looks very different than I thought it would as we prepared for him. However, I can tell you that even with those painful memories and that piece of my heart who’s not with me, life is very good. For the most part, my heart has healed, and things have moved forward and onward as they have a way of doing.

If I could deliver a message to my grieving self from eight years ago it would be this:

You’re going to be ok. 

All the fears and uncertainties – you’re going to wade through them and they’re not going to be as scary as they seem right now. You’ll always tear up from time to time, but you’re not going to cry forever. I know it seems impossible, but I promise you, the pain will fade. Most importantly, there is so much JOY in your future, and somehow – in some crazy, inconceivable way – the pain will make that joy immeasurably sweeter. 

And so to you also, my fellow mother — have hope, dear friend. There are far better days ahead.

Hugs and Love,

Mel

An Open Letter To The Expectant Mother Who Just Lost Her Child

13 Comments

  1. Emily on December 22, 2016 at 2:03 am

    Love you and your beautiful family <3

  2. Natalie on December 22, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    Beautifully said. I stumbled upon your blog through Instagram. We’ll probably didn’t stumble, God knew I was having a rough moment. I too, am a mother who lost their first child. Piper passed at at 36 weeks from an umbilical cord accident this past July. I cautiously edge towards a new normal filled with both grief and joy. The first of everything is hard. I’m approaching Christmas with empty arms and holding my breath until it passes. Thank you for your words from the other side. Merry Christmas.

    • Mel McLellan on December 22, 2016 at 3:07 pm

      Dear Sweet Natalie. My heart goes out to you in ways you can’t imagine. I came home from the hospital after losing our son on Thanksgiving day so I know what it’s like to have all of this be so fresh right at the holidays. I’m so sorry for your loss. Particularly at Christmas, please take care of yourself and let this season pass without any expectations for how you should be or what you should do. I’ll be thinking of you and lifting you up. Thank you so much for reaching out.

  3. Ella on December 23, 2016 at 4:57 am

    Your family gives me so much hope Mel! My baby girl Tilly was born full term via c section 17 weeks ago and died at 13 days old due to a random birth defect, very very bad luck. We have been given the green light to ttc again, I was so worried because I’ve had a c section and I want more children so your Instagram and blog have given me hope.

    I feel like everyone around me is pregnant and or having baby girls and I feel terrible because when I hear the news I have debilitating envy and anger. I hope my family looks like yours in 8 years time.

    Xx

    • Mel McLellan on December 23, 2016 at 4:09 pm

      Oh Ella. I’m so very sorry. I know your heart is broken and I long with you for the day when you’ll have living children to hold. It will be salve to your soul, and it is coming – I promise you. Don’t beat yourself up for your feelings. They’re confusing right now, understandably. It won’t always be this way.

      If I might offer some (more) unsolicited advice: find a doctor you trust and who is familiar with doing multiple c-sections on one woman. The doc who delivered all of my living children is so wonderful and I trust her implicitly. I have always known that if she were to tell me I needed to be done, I would have peace with that. I can’t tell you how many other doctors have told me to quit along the way when she was so confident that I could continue. It will make all the difference for your peace of mind moving forward.

      I hope you’ll reach out to me when your next child is born. I want to rejoice with you, and I know we’ll be doing that soon. <3

      - Mel

  4. Meg on December 23, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    Thank you for this post from the bottom of my heart. I came upon it from instagram. We just lost our beautiful baby boy Theodore unexpectedly at 41 weeks via ER c section this Thanksgiving day. My heart is so full of sadness and pain but knowing that I may find happiness again is helpful and inspiring in this dark time. Many thank you’s for sharing your story!

    • Mel McLellan on December 23, 2016 at 4:17 pm

      Meg – from the bottom of my heart, I’m so sorry. It’s always gut-wrenching, but to lose a baby here at the holidays? — it’s the worst. I came home from the hospital on Thanksgiving day so I know that pain. My heart is broken for you.

      It’s hard to really hear this when it’s all so fresh, but hear me when I say: you WILL find happiness again. You will. It’s not a “maybe” or a “might”.

      It’s going to take time and it’s not going to be easy, but one day you’re going to look back on this time and it will feel mostly ok.

      Much love to you. I will be looking forward to hearing about the day that you hold a healthy babe in your arms. Take heart. It’s coming. <3

  5. Annie Pelaez on December 25, 2016 at 10:59 am

    I too would like to thank you very very much for this post. Our beautiful baby girl Ariana passed 5 days after being born and coming home without her has been the hardest and most painful thing I have ever done. In so many ways I feel like I failed her and should’ve spent more time with her. Its as if I could’ve done something to prevent what happened knowing that it was completely out of my hands. My mom has always told me that sometimes God needs another angel and only chooses the best ones.
    I feel every feeling that you’ve described in your open letter and I thank you for helping me feel like I am not alone. Infant loss is such an unspoken-about topic and no one ever thinks that its as common as it is or that you will live it yourself. I am currently getting help from the Finley Project and want to let every mom out there that has recently lost a baby know that its ok to get help. Its not a sign of weakness as I at one point felt.
    So as I sit here on Christmas day missing my little girl, I can also dream of the Christmas mornings I will have with my future babies.
    Thank you again for your inspiring message,
    Annie

    • Mel McLellan on December 30, 2016 at 11:50 pm

      Annie, from the bottom of my heart, I’m so sorry. I know you know this, but let me reaffirm for you — there is nothing you could have done and I’m certain your baby girl did not feel the slightest bit neglected during her 5 days here on earth. My youngest was in the Nicu for a week and I know that feeling of not being able to spend enough time there — the guilt you feel when you’re not by their side. You are but one person, who was recovering from birth, and you did the best you could. I’m confident in that.

      I like to think that this whole lifetime is but a tiny blip on the radar of our entire lives in eternity, and therefore though the time we are spending away from our children in heaven feels long to us, it’s going to feel incredibly short to them, and we’ll have so so so much time to love them in person one day. <3

      Thank you so much for reaching out. I'm so glad to hear that you're getting help and I hope you find peace. I know there are much better Christmas mornings in your future!

      - Mel

  6. Faye on February 9, 2017 at 9:37 am

    I lost my son, Aiden, at 22 weeks. He was my first. You have put my thoughts into words so eloquently. I am the mother of 4 beautiful children…3 on earth and one in heaven. ❤️

    • Mel McLellan on February 9, 2017 at 11:35 pm

      Thank you, Faye! I’m so happy to hear your family has grown and your heart has found so much joy after your loss. Much love to your and your family!

  7. Lindsey @ The Dixie Belle Diaries on April 10, 2017 at 7:03 pm

    I found your blog from #southernblogger on IG– I love meeting other southern bloggers! This post. Thank you for writing this one. I have two toddler boys, and one boy in heaven. We lost our third boy this fall at 20 weeks. No one knows why, and after two healthy and totally normal pregnancies that resulted in healthy babies, we were completely blindsided when we lost our James. I also struggle with telling people I only have two children. I want people to know that I have three sons, but it’s so awkward to have to console a stranger when they feel like they’ve just put their foot in their mouth. You just can’t win. I’m so glad you were able to have four more beautiful children, and I hope that I am able to do the same. But each pregnancy is going to be so terrifying now, and that’s really hard to come to terms with. Love and hugs to you, momma.

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