We’ve become a world where every day is a ‘celebrate something’ day. Thank goodness the internet keeps track of frivolous events like these gems that occur in January:
- National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day
- National Museum Selfie Day
- National Squirrel Appreciation Day
- National Hand Writing Day
- National Green Juice Day
If I start planning now, maybe I can celebrate these “holidays” simultaneously? What if I roll myself in bubble wrap, tape an I love squirrels handwritten note to my chest, head to a local museum wearing this outfit to snap a selfie while drinking wheat grass? Will the internet award me extra bonus points? Will I advance to the next level and be invited to participate in the February observation days?
Amidst the fun and ridiculous, you will find more legitimate events that are geared towards awareness and having difficult conversations around serious subjects. One near and dear to my heart has just kicked off; the month of October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. Globally this month of recognition has sparked the International Wave of Light where people around the world light a candle on October 15th at 7:00 pm local time to remember babies lost to pregnancy and infant loss.
Where we live, October is generally a month full of change. The temperatures start to cool off, the trees burst into various shades of yellow, orange and red and the sun fades earlier each night. October is a transition month where we start packing away the fun of summer. Kayaks and boats get pulled from the lake. Patio furniture gets put away. Mums and cornstalks pop up on front porches. It’s a time of reflection. A time to slow down. A time to start the recharging of our batteries that takes place during the cold, snowy and dark months until mother nature wakes us all back up in the Spring.
Remembering babies lost too soon is so fitting for this time of year. When you have a miscarriage, the joy of finding out your pregnant seems like a distant summer memory. The pain of losing your baby is like an arctic blast of cold air to your heart. After the shock of the initial loss wears off, you crash hard consumed with grief and hibernate in the dark feelings. Like trees dropping their leaves in the fall, you need to let go of every hope and every dream of the life you had imagined living with the baby that you are no longer carrying, that you never got to meet. The flaw with this analogy is that releasing the heartache from losing a baby doesn’t just happen in one season. It continues for an entire lifetime.
This is why I wrote my book Table for Two, Life After Infertility. (Available here) I thought by sharing our story, people on a similar journey would find support and encouragement and their friends and family would get a glimpse of what their loved one might be going through. Jaime helped provide the male perspective on his complex feelings around infertility, something that isn’t talked about nearly enough. We both wanted to get real about the ugliness and emotional trauma in a raw and honest way that can only come from the experience of having done the hard grief work. While I’m at a place in our journey where I no longer focus on the pain and despair that came with losing four babies, I will never, can never forget what we went through.
Jaime and I will be forever grateful for the tiny glimmers of light that showed up in our life during those dark days. I invite you to light a candle on October 15th at 7:00, take a picture and share it on your social platform of choice with #waveoflight. It might seem small and insignificant, but for a person stuck in their grief to see that they are not alone, a newsfeed full of candlelight might be just the flicker of hope they need to hold on to.