Sideshow Barb

October 15th is National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day. (Edited to add: Please go check out Band Back Together’s Wall of Remembrance. It’s really important for us to support each other.)

Sounds a bit grim, doesn’t it?  I feel like this is one of those subjects that we’re not supposed to talk about, much less write about on the internet, even though awesome women have been writing about it for years. I’ve even written about it before, kinda, in relation to adoption.

I lost two pregnancies in the past few years. This isn’t shocking news to anyone who has read me for awhile.  Both were terrible, as I imagine any woman who has had a miscarriage might say.  ER visits, blood draws, ultrasounds, more blood draws, and the inevitable — either losing the baby “naturally”  (if early enough) or having a D&C or induction.  The last time they shot me up with Pitocin & Dilaudid & sent me home to labor it out.  It sucked.  And when I say “me”, I mean “we”.  Chris was beside me the entire time, holding it together for both of us.

After a few weeks, I sought out a support group through my local hospital & OBGYN, only to find out that none existed. But I needed somewhere to go with all of this “stuff”.  I’m not a good online “group” person.  Never really connected well through message boards, that sort of thing.

I started taking pictures, trying to process the latest loss.  It started with this one, taken about a month after.

Many people in my life found it creepy & weird.  But it made sense to me.  And I kept taking pictures until one day I hit upon the ultimate creepy & weird, my ultimate miscarriage muse: Skull Baby.  Skull Baby once sat on my ex-husband’s desk when we worked at Borders together.  When I inherited his job, I inherited SB.  And Skull Baby had been sitting on a low shelf in my living room for years, hanging out.  One day, while gathering my camera bag & other equipment, I grabbed him & put him in my pocket.

That afternoon began a close relationship with a small rubber baby with a skull ring over his face.

He went with me everywhere & I took pictures of him in ridiculous situations.  Even the “light-hearted” ones are a bit creepy.  But it’s how I coped.  The process was cathartic.

This is not to say that I didn’t go through all of the mourning bullshit that comes with losing a pregnancy.  Oh, I did.  In spades.  Nothing that a week in the hospital, medication & some therapy couldn’t fix.  Therapy would have been a good idea from the get-go.  But I am stubborn.

There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to get through this kind of loss.  Some days it was just about “picking ‘em up & putting ‘em down”.  Some days I cried for hours.  Some days I laughed. Some days I was just numb.  But I got through it.  It took a lot of time and acceptance.  I’m a natural at neither patience or acceptance.

One last picture I wanted to post. We were so happy that day.  So excited.

There’s no forgetting the children we didn’t have.  There’s no denying the hopes & dreams that are conceived as soon as you see the two pink lines.  Malcolm Christopher & Ophelia Frances, you’re with me always.