Pregnancy After Loss

No, It’s Not My First

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monochrome photography of children on swing

Three weeks after Maliyah died, I reached out to the Pregnancy Loss Support Program, and they matched me with a Peer Counselor, who I spoke with a few times. The thing I remember most from our conversations was when I asked her when I would feel normal again, and she said “never.” She said, “even if you decide to have another pregnancy, a random stranger will stop you in the grocery store aisle and ask you when you are due, and if it’s your first. And for the rest of your life, you’re going to face that, and other questions that have no good answers.”

At the time, I thought she was insane. Another pregnancy? Over my dead body. Literally.

But she was right, of course. I am still non-pregnant-passing in most random-stranger scenarios, but at the gym, in spandex and tank tops, it’s become obvious.

The issue is: it’s not my first. But unless I want to follow up with “my first one is dead,” then I never quite know what to say. If I say I have another kid, then they ask how old she is (dead) or how I feel about being a mom of 2 (probably not the way they think I’d feel, since one is dead). If I do say it’s my first, then people assume I don’t know what’s coming, and offer their unwelcome advice, and I do know.

When I first started to tell my coaches at the gym that I was pregnant, only one of them knew about my pregnancy last year. For the ones who didn’t know about it, I figured they would ask me if I wanted modifications for certain exercises, and I wanted to nip that in the bud. To get ahead of that question, I came in for the kill with the overshare. After their squeals of excitement, I said, “I don’t think you know this, but I was also pregnant last year. The baby died, and I almost died. So, this time around I have a very large team of doctors giving me a lot of advice, and I’ll be following that advice and making some of my own modifications.” This was usually followed by shock, nods, a few “I’m so sorries” and “of courses,” and from then on, I was free to take things at my own pace, unbothered.

I wish I didn’t have to be so blunt, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of playing dumb. I didn’t want to pretend I needed help with a modification for a cross-body woodchop when I was already 25.5 weeks pregnant less than a year ago. I knew what to do and what not to do, and I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.

It’s not my first. I know what exercises to modify. I know what foods not to eat. I know to try not to sleep on my back. I know to take the trash out daily because the smell makes me want to vomit. I know every test and scan that exists. I know how my body will look and change and feel. I know, because I’ve done it before. RECENTLY.

This time, I also have a huge team of doctors giving me (sometimes conflicting) medical advice, so I don’t need any more people’s advice, especially less qualified people. I now have the BEST OF THE BEST on my team, experts in their field, sometimes the foremost in their field in the country, thanks to living in New York. They know their shit. As I said to someone recently, “you know the saying, ‘there are too many cooks in the kitchen?’ Well, I have too many doctors in my uterus.”

Also, my pregnancy is not a normal one. Most people under the age of 85 don’t have a nephrologist on speed dial. Therefore, while some coaches at my gym may have training in coaching normal pregnant people, they probably don’t have training coaching “special needs Emily.” I don’t blame them, even most doctors wouldn’t know! Heck, I had different advice from 2 doctors on my own team! But the point is, this ain’t my first rodeo. I know more about the specifics of pregnancy than probably 99.9999% of childless non-doctors; I’ve dedicated the past year of my life to research and information-gathering.

I also know more about pregnancy than a large percentage of people with living children. That’s because I’ve now gone through 2/3 of a pregnancy twice, first with a very complicated pregnancy, and now, a super high risk one. I know every possible scan, every possible blood test, every possible complication. I know the different trisomies by heart, and which tests can screen for them. I know multiple different types of cerclages. I know when bed rest is recommended (almost never) and which recommendations are old wives’ tales. Most people go through a pregnancy with naïvity. I have none of that, but I have a boatload of knowledge. So no, it’s not my first.

The complicated part, of course, is that I have nothing to show for it. How do I explain that I have been 25 weeks pregnant, AND 14 weeks pregnant, but I’ve never parented a child? I don’t. I just stay away from people, mostly, especially parents. I steer clear of conversations I don’t want to be a part of or can’t contribute to. When I see people talk about how they don’t want their kids to grow up, and they want them to stay just this age forever, I shut my mouth. Because I know that’s not true. I know they’d be devastated if their kid, in fact, never grew up. I know because mine never did.

I find that the more often I share about Maliyah as part of my story this time around, the more comfortable I am. Instead of just saying, “I’m pregnant!” I’ll say, “I’m pregnant again!” Depending on the situation, and if I’m in a charitable mood and want to lighten the emotional load on the listener, I sometimes add some humor or jest.

I used this humor tactic recently when I went to the dentist. One year ago at the dentist, I was pregnant. At the time, my gums were bleeding every night when I flossed, so I mentioned it. The female dentist said that it happens often in pregnancy, and not to be too worried about it. Then, 6 months later at the dentist, I wasn’t pregnant. Unfortunately, they assigned me to a dental hygienist who was 9 months pregnant. She asked me if anything had changed “in my general health” since my previous appointment. I said, “I was pregnant, and now I’m not.”

Last month, pregnant YET AGAIN at the dentist, I was asked this same question about my general health. This time I laughed, and I said, “it seems I’m on a schedule to get pregnant annually, so I tend to have the same issues every other time I come here! Still no living babies, but hopefully this time’s the charm!” I laughed, she laughed (uncomfortably) and then the moment passed. I didn’t want to go through the fake chit chat about me being pregnant before, so I led with the facts and a joke.

It turns out my Peer Counselor was right, people always ask about the rest of your family unit when you mention a pregnancy or appear pregnant. I’ve decided that in most scenarios, I am not going to say it’s my first. Usually when I think about the reasons I’d say that, it’s to save the listener from an awkward encounter; but it’s not awkward to me, it’s just my family. My feelings have definitely evolved over time, sharing here on the blog has helped me feel more comfortable sharing IRL. Hopefully I’ll have a living addition to the gang this summer, and he’ll be my second.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 6 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Loss Mom

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There are so many things I lost when my baby died. I lost my baby, obviously, but there were a million secondary losses. One of the big losses was the sense of community. I was in the “expecting” community, then all of a sudden, I was not. If you are the type to join the “bump groups” on reddit or Facebook or anywhere, where you find thousands of women looking to have babies around the same time, all of a sudden you are left behind. Personally, I’m not that kind of gal, and those groups always made me a little uncomfortable. However, last year when I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Maliyah, I did join a local moms group, looking to see where people were signing up for daycare wait lists, what the going rates were for nannies in the neighborhood, and who was selling second-hand strollers, etc. When I came home from the hospital empty-handed and empty wombed, I immediately exited all of those groups and it was devastating.

But I’m pregnant now! I’m back in the club! The COOL MOMS CLUB! The regular moms club! Except… I don’t feel part of the club at all. In fact, I feel exactly the same as I did before, like I have a dead baby. Yes, I’m growing a new one, but I feel completely out of the club.

I didn’t realize just how “other” I felt until last month, when I saw an Instagram friend repost from Vogue Weddings the announcement that Sophia Richie Grainge was pregnant. The photo showed her in an unbuttoned, oversized men’s shirt and underwear, belly on full display. It had 1.9 MILLION likes. I saw it, visibly cringed and recoiled, and clicked away. I couldn’t look at it. I had to take a moment and realize my own reaction. Why was I so uncomfortable seeing a woman pregnant, when I myself was pregnant with a little bump of my own? I reflected on how I felt the week prior at my doctor’s appointment. As it happens when you go to a maternal fetal medicine specialist, most of the people in the waiting room, indeed are carrying babies. It’s why they’re there. But to this day, I look around the waiting room and I can’t stand looking at them. I find myself averting my eyes from anyone pregnant, even walking past strangers on the sidewalk.

After Maliyah died, when I had to go to my doctor for follow-up appointments, I was similarly disturbed and triggered seeing pregnant women. I thought this would be temporary because of grief and trauma, and that I would somehow find myself “fixed” and “back in the in-crowd” once I was pregnant again. I’ve been waiting for this moment, but it hasn’t happened and now I’m not sure if it ever will.

Whenever I think I’m in the clear and I’m feeling more part of the club again, I get shoved back into my place by random seemingly-innocuous conversations. Since I’m in my mid-30’s, of course more and more of my friends are expecting (living) babies. Therefore, many conversations revolve around upcoming births. I was feeling so much better about these conversations. After all, I have one coming up, too (hopefully). But recently, I realized my worries and complaints are just SO DIFFERENT from other expectant mothers.

Once you have a kid, if you have living parents or in-laws, you also make them grandparents. What a gift! I know my mom is dying to be a grandma with a new tiny baby to hold. I also know that some people have overbearing parents and grandparents. Recently, some friends were talking about their parents/in-laws and their involvement in their kids and lives, and I again realized how different my guilt and struggles were. Don’t get me wrong, everyone complains about their parents and in-laws, and I don’t want to minimize any of their struggles, but in 2022, I promised my parents they’d become grandparents and then I gave them a dead grandkid. Instead of visiting their new grandkid in the hospital, they came to visit me, babyless, hooked up to an EKG and 4 IVs. That’s not what I promised, and my extreme feelings of guilt for letting their grandparent dreams down by giving them a dead grandkid, they just don’t compare to all of the “regular mom” guilt.

Now, two years later, I am once again promising my parents another grandkid. Hopefully this one will be alive. My friends complain about how involved their parents are, imagine how uninvolved they’d be if your kid was dead? Imagine how hesitant they’d be to show their excitement if they weren’t sure if this one would survive? Or if they weren’t sure how you’d react to the excitement because you were so terrified yourself? My parents are scared to even ask about my pregnancy unless I bring it up. We have been very clear about not accepting gifts yet because of our extreme caution. I wish more than anything that I could be a “regular” mom getting gifts from excited grandparents-to-be, but instead, we just skirt the subject and wait with baited breath.

The subject of me feeling so incredibly “different” came up recently when I was talking with my husband. He asked who I told about the pregnancy, and I told him that all of my close friends and immediate family knew. He asked what they thought about it, and what they said. I said, “well, they said congratulations, but I don’t really talk to them about it. Who wants to know about my hundreds of appointments and blood draws?” He was pretty surprised to hear I don’t discuss my pregnancy with my friends, since I am so open and outgoing and extroverted usually.

For weeks, I thought about why I don’t feel comfortable talking about it, especially now that many of my friends have kids of their own. I think that is actually why. There are two groups of friends, the people who have babies now (many of whom I was SUPPOSED to have a baby before), and the people who don’t have babies. My friends who have never been pregnant don’t really understand, and those who have been pregnant but haven’t gone through an extremely traumatic loss, I feel like they can’t relate. Sure, I could talk about the scans or the tests to my friends with kids, and they would be able to speak knowledgably about them because they had the same ones. But I doubt they had panic attacks in the waiting room every time. I doubt they didn’t sleep for weeks as they waited for their metabolic blood panel to come back. I doubt they broke out in a cold sweat in the Uber on the way to the hospital. I doubt they literally sob EVERY time they have an ultrasound. I doubt their charts say “SIGNIFICANT ANXIETY” in all caps in the notes section.

I could share more with friends, but I don’t feel like anyone would get it. I’m not a regular mom, I’m a loss mom. Some of this could be in my head, and I like to think all of my friends are sympathetic people, so even if they couldn’t have empathy I think they would feel bad. But I don’t want my friends to feel bad, I want them to understand and it feels like no one can. That’s what the internet is for, I guess, to find other PAL moms who similarly have panic attacks in waiting rooms, and can suggest their favorite progressive muscle relaxation techniques when they feel the cold sweats coming.

My regular mom friends with living kids talk about picking baby names. One mentioned how they settled on a name months before the birth, but they wanted to reserve the right to change it if the baby didn’t seem to match the name. For me, I have a list of names, but then a backup list of names for if the baby is dead. I have my top favorite names, and then I think, “if this baby dies too, would I want to save that name for a living baby? Would I ‘waste’ it on another dead one? What is the meaning of the name, and would it be awkward as a memorial name instead of on a breathing kid? Like if it means energetic or ‘full of life’ isn’t that weird for a dead child? Does the name go with Maliyah’s name? How would it look on a memorial necklace next to hers?”

Regular moms don’t think about those things when they’re deciding names. Regular moms think, “Is this a pretty name? Do we like it? Are we naming them after someone? Does it go with the last name?”

Loss moms have a list of names that go with their last name, and a list of names that don’t, because last names don’t really matter when the baby never gets a birth certificate. Every single decision is made differently.

I’ve talked before about how my excitement is different than other moms-to-be because mine is complicated and tinged by 100 other emotions, and I had a perfect example of this a few weeks ago.

I mentioned to a friend when I announced my pregnancy to her, that I think my body looked at 12 weeks the way that it did at 24 weeks with Maliyah. When she heard that, she told me it made her want to see bump pics. I have a complicated relationship with bump photos to begin with, since I’m not 100% comfortable with my body changing outside of my control, so even with Maliyah, I didn’t take many photos of my changing body, and I certainly did not share them publicly.

When my friend asked me for a bump pic, I told her I didn’t have any. But then I remembered, I did. The morning of my doctor’s appointment at 10 weeks, I took photos in the mirror. I had completely convinced myself that I was going to find out that day that my baby was dead. I was sure. I told myself, “I better take a photo of myself so I have something to commemorate this baby.” I took a couple photos before I put on an outfit and headed to the doctor, where I found out that everything was perfectly fine.

I had actually forgotten about those pictures. I didn’t take them to flaunt or show anyone. I took them for future memories when I figured I’d be left with nothing else. Empty womb, empty arms, yet again. I needed something to put in the memory box.

Regular moms don’t do that or have those thought processes. Regular moms take photos for Instagram or to send to friends and family. Regular moms hold up avocadoes to compare their baby to an inanimate object. Loss moms think about putting photos and memories inside an inanimate object since that’s all they are left with.

I will admit, it made me really sad to realize that the only reason I was taking pictures was because I thought they’d be the only ones I’d have. I realized I had been doing that with other things too. For this pregnancy, I saved the pregnancy test (in a ziplock bag because ew), and I saved my wristband from the hospital from my 12-week scan. I worry that these are the only items I’ll have to remember this baby.

I have tried to think differently and get excited about this new baby, but as you read, it’s been difficult. I get very sad when I see happy and naïve people post pregnancy things because I’m jealous. I wish I had that excitement. I wish I could excitedly receive gifts. I wish I could confidently schedule a baby shower. I want to be a regular mom. But I’m not, I’m forever and for always a loss mom.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 0 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

Comparison is the Creator of Joy

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two people holding pineapple fruit on their palm

“Comparison is the Thief of Joy.” This is a phrase that is thrown around a lot, and usually attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt, although that is likely a misattribution according to the internet. The point of the phrase is, if you compare yourself to others, you will likely be disappointed and it will make you feel like shit.

Going through baby loss, I can say 100% yes, this can be true. I spent a lot of my time in 2023 comparing myself to everyone else, and feeling like a complete failure, that the world was sh*t, that I couldn’t get myself the literal one thing I’ve always wanted in my entire life, and that everyone else just seemed to have it better. Then, I realized I was doing this toxic comparison stuff, and I felt like sh*t even more because, as the saying goes, I was “robbing myself” of joy. Comparison, however, is an extremely normal thing for humans to do. In fact, according to research in Psychology Today, more than 10% of daily thoughts involve making a comparison of some kind.

Recently, I’ve found myself comparing me to ME, though, and I have to tell you, it’s the opposite of a thief of joy, it’s almost the only thing that can CREATE joy for me now.

You may remember a few days ago, I talked about how my only experience with pregnancy resulted in horrific trauma and loss. Therefore, it’s only natural that I compare my current pregnancy with my previous one, since it’s my only point of reference. But every time something goes well that did NOT go well last time, I feel extreme joy and relief. Comparing my own personal past experiences to my present ones is the only thing that seems to bring this reaction.

In November 2022, I had an appointment for a 12-week scan. This is the first scan where they do an abdominal ultrasound, so they advise you to have a full bladder. What they did NOT advise me, was that they were running 2.5 hours late. Without going into the details, I will just say, it did not end well. Holding my bladder eventually shifted my organs so that I could no longer go to the bathroom. I ended up leaving the hospital without the scan because they closed for the evening, and then I ended up back in the hospital on the emergency triage labor and delivery floor later that night to try and empty and re-shift my organs back into place. It was traumatic, to say the least. The next morning, I was BACK at the hospital to try to have them perform the scan again. Again, I was greeted by a new receptionist who told me to have a full bladder, to which I just laughed, then I eventually did get the scan by an ultrasound tech I had never seen, in a dark room where she did not speak. I was terrified the whole time that the events from the night before had killed my baby, and I just waited and waited while she didn’t say anything to me until I finally asked, “is everything ok?” And it was. Then the attending doctor, who I had also never seen, came in and said “everything looks good” with no acknowledgement of the previous day and night, and they sent me on my way.

Four weeks later, I was scheduled for another scan. This time, I had to go to a different ultrasound facility I had never been to, again with strangers, for an early anatomy scan. I was told an early anatomy scan was necessary because I was ANCIENT, aka 35 years old. Again, I was laid down on a bed in a dark, silent room with an ultrasound technician, and this time, she was having trouble getting the pictures she needed. She kept shifting the bed up, down, angle up, angle down, asking me to shift to one side, lift my legs, do all sorts of things. Eventually, she told me to get up and walk around. This was also when she scolded me for not eating enough breakfast, which you may remember from my post about body image. I was terrified. What was she trying to see that she couldn’t see? I thought some crucial part of my baby was MIA. Again, it turned out everything was fine. But since this scan was done at a different facility, those scan images weren’t in my chart online. When, two weeks later, I had an additional scare that my baby might have spina bifida (she didn’t), my doctor wanted to see the photos from the scan, but didn’t have them. All I could say was that the tech had told me, “everything looked normal.”

When I think about my pregnancy with Maliyah, I usually say it was, “uneventful… until it was NOT.” But then I think about those two scans and I realize, it was kind of eventful. Those stories are just background to say, even before Maliyah died, things were not smooth sailing.

While of course, I wish my pregnancy with Maliyah had been nothing but great memories with rainbows and unicorns, it isn’t true. That also means that every single time something goes smoothly or easily with pregnancy #2, I am floored, and I am overjoyed.  

Last week, I had my 12-week nuchal translucency scan for pregnancy #2, the same infamous bladder-uterus-shifting scan from 2022. I was terrified, but I was mentally prepared. To make matters even more complicated, it was the very first time I was to go back to the hospital where Maliyah died. The last time I checked myself in on those screens, I was pregnant. Then, six days later, I left very NOT pregnant. I was nervous about entering the hospital and having this scan for weeks.

I arrived, and the receptionist confirmed if I had a full bladder. I didn’t of course, because ONLY FOOLS MAKE THAT MISTAKE TWICE. But I lied, and kind of chuckled, and I said, sort of. She said, “ok good, because they’re about to call you.” Now, in my previous pregnancy, I had 4 scans on that same floor and they had NEVER been less than an hour behind, so that comment actually elicited a true laugh from me. I said, “oh yea? What does ‘about to’ mean?” And she said, “you’re next, maybe five minutes?” I went to find a seat with Chris, away from all of the other visibly pregnant people, and I said to Chris, “do you think five minutes means like 30 minutes? Or two hours?” We didn’t believe it for a second. Chris took out his iPad, and I took out my Kindle, ready for the inevitable long wait.

The second nurse who came out to call someone said “Emily!” I didn’t even believe it at first, I actually said it back to her to double check. Sure enough, it was me. We walked back to the room, one I had never been in before and had no traumatic experiences in, and she started the scan. Immediately she found our baby, she talked out loud the whole time to us. “There’s your baby! See baby dancing around?” Immediately she shifted to show us the tiny heart beating away. She took all of the necessary photos, while explaining aloud the whole time what she was doing, she even answered a question of mine. Then, she said everything looked good, but my doctor was going to come in and confirm. Within five minutes, my actual doctor walked in (a familiar face! Gasp!) and she knew my name, she knew I had seen my other doctor the week prior, she answered my questions, and she even knew the next time I was going to see her. We left the appointment feeling happy and relieved, and we were HOME within one hour and fifteen minutes of our appointment time, even taking the cross-town bus.

Later that night, Chris asked me how I felt. He was there with me at the scan, so of course he knew we had gotten good news, but he wasn’t just asking about the baby, he was asking about ME. It was only then that I reflected on why I felt so great. It wasn’t just the baby, it was the experience. It was a full 180 from our last experience at that same scan. There was no wait. There were no unanswered questions. The tech was kind and immediately showed us our baby and heartbeat without prompting. She was friendly. Then we got to have face time with our actual doctor. I must admit that it was just a happy coincidence that my doctor was on call there that day, but it made a world of difference. Dealing with a brand-new person every appointment who doesn’t understand the baggage and trauma I am carrying to every appointment is emotionally taxing. To see a familiar face, for the doctor to know the next time I would see her, it felt like I was actually being cared for. It felt like, if I had concerns, I had someone I could call. It felt so much less lonely than last time, when I had checked myself into the triage unit later that night without ever talking to my doctor.

When I reflected this back to Chris, I said how I wouldn’t even have known how amazing that experience was, if I hadn’t seen the polar opposite in my previous pregnancy. While comparison is sometimes the thief of joy, this time, a regular old scan, in comparison to the experience I had last time, was the creator of such an abundance of joy. I left feeling supported, feeling like I had a team, and feeling like maybe, just MAYBE things would go differently this time around.

While I think it’s still unhealthy to compare myself to others regularly, comparing myself to my own experiences can sometimes be a good thing. It’s not just about the results of a test or scan (although those matter a heck of a lot, too), it’s also about how I feel, who is around me, and those pieces of mental health are sometimes just as important. While I don’t love thinking about my previous pregnancy as “bad” and comparing it to the one now as “good,” sometimes when I look objectively, I can see major differences and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean Maliyah means less to me, it doesn’t mean I love her less, it just means I now have a great care team, and that gives me reassurance and an inkling of hope.

(Written at: 12 weeks, 6 days)

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Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Pregnancy After Loss

Invisible Grief

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lonely woman walking up a road filled with shadows of people

Maliyah’s birthday is coming up, which means I’ve been living in the grief and loss community for almost a year. It seems crazy to think how long it’s been, and it’s been a blur.

There are so many terms I’ve learned in the past 11 months. A lot of them are medical, like Diluted Russell Viper Venom Time (not related to a snake), but some are death and grief-related. Something that comes up time and time again in this community is the concept of  “disenfranchised grief.” According to WebMD, the Wikipedia of medical issues, disenfranchised grief is when a person’s grieving doesn’t fit in with the larger society’s attitude about dealing with death and loss. There are a lot of examples of this, like when a person’s pet dies, and society thinks it isn’t a “bad enough” loss. Or when someone dies from suicide or addiction and society says that it’s the person’s “fault.” Other examples include loss of something that isn’t a death, like divorce or loss of a job. Society tends to think these things aren’t “as bad” so you don’t have the “right” to grieve them in the same way.

Most people agree that losing a child is REALLY bad. But what if the child is someone who never lived outside your body? Then it doesn’t count.

I sometimes think of late term pregnancy loss as disenfranchised grief, but more often, I think of it as invisible grief. It’s something that no one else sees, both literally and figuratively.

I feel like the one good thing about typical grief is that it brings people together. There’s a whole concept in Judaism called shiva where people come together for seven days to discuss their loss and accept the comfort of others who maybe knew the person who died. But in the case of late-term pregnancy loss, no one knew the person who died. No one met her. No one saw her, not even in photos. Some people may share photos of their uterus but that’s not really my style. In a lot of cases, people didn’t even know Maliyah existed!

I recently went to a work conference that was full of land mines. I work for a membership organization with more than 1500 members. I never announced my pregnancy to the members, and there was no live birth, so most of them had no idea. The last time I saw most of them, I was pregnant, but in secret. There were so many conversations that began, “how was your past year?” Or “it’s been so long! What’s new?” Or my favorite, a person who called across the hall to me, “everything good, though, right?” NO. Everything is NOT good. Everything is shit, actually. But you can’t say that to tangential colleagues, especially because nobody knew what happened, nobody knew the person who died, and some people wouldn’t even have considered her a person.

It’s less hurtful to have people ignore or not see your grief when those people are minor characters in your life. It’s a lot worse when it’s close friends or family. The hard part is, I know it’s not intentional, but it’s hurtful nonetheless. And since the grief is invisible, the hurt is, too.

I had an example of this at Christmas. I brought Maliyah’s ornaments with me to Texas, where I was celebrating Christmas with my in-laws. We celebrated Christmas with them last year when I was 4 months pregnant with Maliyah. Everyone in 2022 knew I was pregnant. Everyone talked about it a LOT.

When I arrived in Texas this year, I told my sister-in-law that I brought ornaments to hang, and she instructed her son, my 15-year-old nephew, to hang them. He took one look at her name and said, “who’s Maliyah?”

Here’s the thing, I know he’s a kid. I also know that it’s quite possible her name was never spoken in their house. But if she was alive, he’d know who she was. They’d be first cousins! They are first cousins. And yes, it’s very possible he never even knew she was born. I know people are weird around death, dying, grief, and kids. Some people think they can’t handle it. And I get that he never met Maliyah, but he knew all about her the year prior when she was in my body, and the next year… POOF. No recollection.  When he asked who she was, I just said simply, “remember how I was pregnant? She was my daughter who died.” End of conversation. I could have ignored it, but he asked a direct question and I wanted him to know the answer. For me, the hole in the family is gaping. For others, it’s not even visible.

I held off on publishing this post until I broke the news about my new pregnancy because now, Maliyah and my grief about her death is even more invisible. I follow enough loss accounts on social media to know that this is common. I know that most people believe a new pregnancy “fixes” the previous loss. This seems absurd if you think about your baby as a person. No other humans are just replaceable or interchangeable.

I saw a post on Instagram that said, “this is how it would sound if we responded to every loss the same way we respond to baby loss.” There were six slides after that, where they went through different scenarios, like if someone’s father died, and someone said, “it’s ok, you can always find another dad,” the way people say, “you can always have another baby.” Or if someone says their sibling died, and someone answered, “at least you know you can have siblings” the way people say “at least you know you can get pregnant.” There were 4 more examples, equally as disturbing, but equally as true. I heard all of those things.

It was less than one month from Maliyah’s death when people started asking if we had considered “trying again” or if we were allowed yet to “try again.” The “again” word, as if we could just replace Baby 1 with Baby Version 2.0.

My grief has become more invisible as people now think of Maliyah as a stepping stone on the way to our happy eventual family. I heard concrete examples of this in the reactions I heard from people after announcing our new pregnancy.

There is an added wrinkle here, which is that to others, there is an extreme sense of déjà vu. My new pregnancy is less than two months off from the previous one, so when we told family before Christmas last year, then this year we were at Christmas again, announcing a pregnancy again, it seemed like Groundhog’s Day. I understand that it seems repetitive to others, and that it seems like the same thing.

To me it’s not. It’s a new pregnancy. A different baby. I repeat a mantra to myself every single day, “different pregnancy, different baby, different placenta, different outcome.” But to outsiders? It’s the same.

When we started to share the news of this new pregnancy, we received messages and phone calls, people saying they were praying for us, that they can’t wait to celebrate with all of us together next year, including the new addition. But, they said the exact same thing last year. Same prayers. Same hopes for a Christmas with a new addition. And then there was no new addition. And no mention of her whatsoever. Nothing. All I saw in church at Christmas was the baby in the row ahead of me, and the baby missing in our row. But to everyone else, they saw the same old Emily and Chris, with no living child and the same possibility of one growing.

People like to look forward, especially when the present is uncomfortable. People like to have hope and belief that things will improve. But for me, I need to hold both. I have the loss of Maliyah in my mind still, and I always will. Of course, I hope for a different-looking holiday season next year, but I also hoped for that last year, and I didn’t get that, and no one acknowledged that. I didn’t forget last year, it was only a year ago! The “yes, and” is STRONG in my head, like the dialectical thinking I mentioned last week. Yes, I’m pregnant. Yes, I may have a baby next year. AND, I still have a dead one. Forever. And I remember what everyone said last year. The hopes and the excitement that people seem to have forgotten. I haven’t forgotten.

I had a full breakdown on Christmas Eve. I explained to Chris how I know people don’t think they have memories with Maliyah because she was never outside of me, but I think of all of the times I had with friends and family when she was with me as memories I have with her.

I have 150 days of memories with her. 150 days of memories of her. I have 150 days that I still think about. But no one else does. It’s strange to feel that those memories are completely invisible to others. It makes ME feel invisible. I’m working on this feeling, trying to feel less invisible, or make my feelings more visible so it’s less lonely. This blog is part of that. I’ll take you with me, whether you like it or not.

(Written at: 11 weeks, 3 days)

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