October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Mth

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. I didn’t know there was such a month until my daughter told me. She, of course, has had her two horrible miscarriages and so is aware of this honorary month. I, too, had two miscarriages. They were heart-breaking, but I already had my two girls prior to those so that really helped. Nevertheless, in honor of this month I just thought I use this entry to sort of remember those two babies that I never had.

The first miscarriage took place in February of 1978 if I remember correctly. It was early in the pregnancy of a baby that would have been born in July or August of that same year. I was only about three months pregnant. I was sure the baby was going to be a girl and her name was to be Rachel. I thought she might have dark hair like mine. She’d be 26 now if she had lived.

My second miscarriage took place in January of 1988 and was also early in the pregnancy. I wasn’t sure if the baby would be a boy or a girl. We had decided the name would be Zachariah if the baby were a boy and Amanda if it were a girl so we called it Zacamanda or Amandazac depending upon our mood. I felt like my heart was being wrenched from my chest when I suffered yet another miscarriage with this baby.

When I became pregnant with my son after all this, I was so terrified that I’d have another miscarriage. That’s one of the curses of pregnancy loss, it shades all future pregnancies with fear. I was so delighted once I passed through the first half of the pregnancy and began to believe that I would actually bring him through to birth. Now I just pray that my daughter will be able to have the same experience. The lack of having a child is a painful gaping hole in her life.