March is Pregnancy After Loss month. This is a month that we celebrate our pregnancies and birth after pregnancy of infant loss. A baby born after a loss is often referred to as a Rainbow Baby. At first, this is what I used to call my baby when I was pregnant, but now I have a love-hate relationship with calling him my Rainbow Baby.
When I was pregnant after my loss, I downloaded a pregnancy tracking app. I was more than paranoid and anxious throughout my pregnancy. When I signed up for the app, it asked me what I wanted to name the baby. Because I didn’t know the sex, I named (him) Rainbow.
Until my subsequent pregnancy after loss, I had never heard of the term “Rainbow Baby”, but I liked it. It was positive and I hadn’t had much of that since my twins’ death. As I got further along in my pregnancy I began to incorporate rainbows in his nursery, in his outfits, and I often referred to him as my Rainbow Baby.
I was still grieving my twins’ death. They were everywhere to me. But my living baby was my happiness. He was my pot of gold after the storm and at the bottom of the rainbow. My baby was going to survive. I held on to hope that he would be lucky and make it to the earth-side.
He arrived, healthy, strong, and beautiful beyond any imagination. My baby, my Rainbow Baby was absolute perfection and he was here. When we brought him home, he was wearing a custom onesie with a rainbow pattern, he had rainbow diapers, and his nursery had a few nods to rainbows. It was rainbow overload. When I look back at it now, it was ever-consuming.
After a while, my Rainbow baby and I grew attached to each other and the guilt began to rear is ugly head. My baby who had a name started his life in the shadows and past of his dead siblings. How would he feel growing up and knowing that he was “after” them.
Then began the love-hate relationship of calling him our Rainbow baby. When someone would mention the term Rainbow baby, I would correct them and remind them that he had his own identity. He is separate. My baby who I gave birth to after my devastating loss is a gift and an absolute blessing.
There is a place for the term Rainbow Baby, I whole-heartedly believe this to be true. This term of Rainbow brings hope and we pray for luck, especially after a a death. We need something to look forward to, something positive, something that brings us peace and love.
But I want to be clear, his life has nothing to do with their deaths.
He WAS my rainbow after the storm. But now he’s my sunshine, my little lover, and life is so much brighter with him in it (and coincidentally, his name means happy-go-lucky).
If your little Rainbow Baby gives you peace and hope and you will continue to call your little sweet your Rainbow, I encourage you to do so. If you feel the same as me by having a love-hate relationship with the term Rainbow Baby, I’m good with that too. It’s a constant internal fight to understand and organize your feelings of having a baby after your child’s or children’s death. There is no clear answer. This is your path and your journey, I wish you peace and love as you find your way.
Through my healing journey of grief (yes, it’s been 3 years and I am still grieving), I look to stories, authors, and self-help books that relate to grief, growth, feminism, and social justice. For Christmas, I told my husband that really wanted a book called “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle. He had never heard of her. I only knew her through Instagram and listening to a few of her TedTalks. As I was eagerly reading her inspiring words, there is a story about Mona Lisa. It screamed to me. A story of a woman who lived over 500 years ago who I now connected to through our grief.
Untamed
As I was in bed reading, there was a part in the book about the painting of Mona Lisa. Glennon Doyle said that while she was looking at the painting in France and a woman approached her and said, “do you want to hear a theory about her smile?”. She was told that Mona Lisa and her husband had “lost” a baby. Then after the birth of their second child, her husband commissioned Leonardo Da Vinci to paint her. But Mona Lisa refused to smile.
I read that story over and over again.
Finally, I felt seen, I felt comforted, I felt connected because of grief.
I see you, Mona Lisa.
I am intrigued by her story.
There are many conflicting stories and theories that go along with why she isn’t smiling. But the story that resonates most with me is that she refused to smile because she was grieving.
Apparently, while she was being painted, she had jokers, jugglers who tried to make her smile wider for the painting. Finally, Leonardo asked her why she wouldn’t smile. She had apparently told Leonardo Da Vinci that she did not want the joy she felt of having her living child to erase the pain of losing her first.
I get it…
Wow, do I get it. I get the guilt of being happy to have a living child that you love so deeply. But I also understand how the death of a child (or in my case two) is a pain that never seems to subside. It does something, almost physical, that makes you stand out from other mothers. The grief sets you aside. But the grief also connects you to other mothers, like Mona Lisa.
Of course, I had to look at other sources of this. An article from The Globe and Mail suggests that the painting was altered. It was alleged that originally Mona Lisa was wearing a black veil, suggesting that despite celebrating the birth of her child she was still in mourning. The story goes on to say that because the painting wasn’t paid for, Da Vince changed it. Taking away the veil but keeping the emotion stoic. Today, this image is one of the most recognized paintings in the world.
How I see the Mona Lisa Today
Before I looked deeper into her portrait, I just saw a woman unamused in a painting. What I see now is a mother’s grief. Her pain (notice the word “pain” is in painting). The guilt of feeling happy while her heart was torn into pieces trying to repair itself with the joy of another baby. This is a painting that countless mothers like you and I can relate and connect to. A feeling of incredible pain, while holding on to gratitude. It’s confusing, yet it makes sense.
I feel like I am connected to the famous Mona Lisa through our grief. As her life continued, I hope she was able to find some peace amongst her grief. Even 500 years later her grief is seen and admirably respected from one grieving mother to another.
New year’s eve doesn’t bring me excitement or even hope for the upcoming year, at least not like it used to. It’s not that I don’t have anything to look forward to, but it’s that I am one more year further from having my babies with me. I never understood grief to be this way. I had always heard that “time heals all” and it makes me cringe. I don’t believe this. I think it’s what someone with good intentions says when they don’t know what to say. I’m going into my fourth year of grief and I can tell you for certain that grief, trauma, and losing the lives that you love so deeply has not been healed. Walking into a new year doesn’t end the grief.
A little story
When I was a naïve 15 year old teen, my grandmother had passed away. We were close. I admired her. Her death was unexpected and it was the first time that I had anyone close to me die. A month later, brought New Year’s eve 1998, moving into 1999. My extended family always got together over the holidays. We always had too much food, the parents usually had too much “fun” and it was a time to have a fun sleepover with my cousins.
So that year, we went to my grandfather’s home (today he is almost 97!) and I remember when it was close to midnight, we all congregated into the den to ring in the new year. I was excited, “A new year means a new start”. Then I noticed that my aunt was crying. She left the room. Being the empath that I was, I was concerned but mostly confused. So I asked my mom why she was crying. My mom (who is very wise), explained that she is moving into the new year and it’s the first time she is going without her mother.
That hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt so stupid to not understand what that had meant. A new year doesn’t mean a new start. Grief doesn’t end when a new year begins.
So in further New Years, I was very cognizant of this and it always brought me back to that memory.
“…Then I got it”
I never fully grasped that feeling until the New Year’s 3 months after my babies died. Then, I really got it. I feel like I understand what my aunt could have been going through it. Maybe it wasn’t the same, maybe it was similar, maybe she was in a whole different place than me. But I was in it, I was so deep in my grief that it was consuming my all-being and going into a new year was not going to change that.
I remember that we had all gathered at my parents’ house. My son had not had time to process the grief that a 5-year-old could acted out at the dinner table. My brother-in-law scolded my son, embarrassed him, embarrassed me, and I and I completely lost it. I couldn’t come back from that moment to enjoy myself. It pushed my emotions to places I didn’t know existed. So when we were close to midnight, physically nauseated, I excused myself. I was in the washroom, hyperventilating while crying a deep sorrowful cry. Unsure how I had made it these past few months and unsure how I could make it another year.
My attempts to help people understand my regret for the years past and the creation of anxiety for the future remains difficult to explain and perhaps difficult to understand. Until, perhaps, it’s a lived experience.
Sometimes other grieving mother’s say what you can’t…
Without having the right words, I came across this quote from another grieving mother:
“Some people may not understand why those grieving are reluctant to move into a new year. For them, they see a fresh year, a new season…but for the bereaved, it’s moving into a new calendar year which their loved one will never reside in.” Zoe Clark-Coates
In the years ahead…
Can following years bring joy and excitement? I think so. Can you find happiness after a part of you dies? I still think so. Can you still grieve and miss the future that you could have had? This is it….YES!
If you are reading this and you are the bereaved, I hope you feel understood. If you are reading this and you know someone who is grieving, I hope to bring you some understanding.
As much as we as bereaved mothers and parents want to look at the new year as a new start, we sadly recognize that a new year doesn’t end our grief.
So even though time does not heal all wounds, time just might make the sorrow slightly more bearable.
I wish you peace in your journey. I wish you love in 2021 <3
There are specific days, memories, or events that seem to conjure up a memory that seems to bring me moments of peace. The one I am going to tell you about is pretty unusual. This is a story of a time when two grieving mothers found each other.
In November of 2017
It was less than 2 months after the death of my twins. I was not in a great place. But I did my best to put one foot in front of the other and to still be there, be present for my son. It was right before Remembrance Day (also known as Veteran’s Day for my American friends) and my county museum displays a marker for each person who was lost in service during any of the combats that Canada had participated in. There are over 200 markers on the lawn of our museum and archives.
I feel that it is especially important to teach my son about the sacrifices that have been made and are continually made so that we can live peacefully in our beautiful country.
He was newly five years old at the time and we walked through the rows of markers. We paid our respects and had a meaningful conversation about what it means to be in the forces in the past and currently.
As we were walking, I noticed that there was a woman standing at a marker. She looked to be in her late fifties, maybe sixties. For some reason I saw her. I kept looking at her. I wondered about her. As we walked closer, I saw her. Like I really saw her. Her face, it looked like mine, just defeated. Obvious signs of grief covered her face. I knew those cry lines, I recognized the puffy eyes, I could see past those dark sunglasses that she was hiding tears. I felt her crushing pain. She was grieving.
As we got closer, she began to smile. She smiled at my son and sparked up a conversation. My little oblivious five year old began to tell her about the markers he had found and spoke about guns and tanks (because what five year old doesn’t think that’s cool). She was so kind and expressed interest in what she was saying. She then began to tell my son about her son. He was in the war and when he was small, he wanted to be in the army. My boy was listening…like really listening. He then asked, “Is he still in the war?”. Her face softened and she knelt to his level, I remember her saying as she pointed to the marker “see this?”, my son nodded. “This is his name. He never came home”.
Those words hit me in the gut. I couldn’t hold back. I began to cry. No, I began to sob. She put her arms around me and said “I’ve been watching you walk down these rows. I don’t want to pry, but you look very sad”. My son piped up, “my mom misses our babies”. I nodded and I told her about my story. As I was telling her about my babies, she began to cry. She pulled me in for a hug, held me and said, “no matter how old or how young our babies are, they’re always our babies”.
By this time, my son was getting anxious to keep moving. I thanked her and thanked her son for the ultimate and devastating sacrifice. With a smile, she said she was grateful for this memory and I agreed. It was one more quick hug, and we parted ways.
When grieving mothers find each other, it makes life a little more bearable.
I am not sure if this was some magnetic forcefield of grief that brought us together or something else, but on that day, we needed each other.
I am not sure if this was some magnetic forcefield of grief that brought us together or something else, but on that day, we needed each other. This was a time when two grieving mothers found each other, a time that made the grief feel just a bit more bearable, even just for a moment.
I am forever grateful for this day. I am so grateful for that moment. That day we grieved together. We finally felt understood. She gave me something I had never had but always needed. I think of her and her son every November. I thank them both for the gift of that day.
I feel that anniversaries are important, but they can also be so hard! Most anniversaries celebrate a life. Sometimes, an anniversary can celebrate a death. When you lose someone or a part of you, it is crushing. It never leaves you. The deep pain that never seems to subside, the self-doubt that something could have been done, or the regret that the moments during that time weren’t appreciated. These all haunt me. As time goes forward, sometimes I am brought back to those days when I am least prepared. I’ve learned through several years of therapy and self-awareness that anticipating the days of grief can be changed to days to celebrate. It takes a lot of mental capacity and preparedness, but as a family, we stand together in the days remembering the life and death of our twins.
The Anniversaries of Their Life
I choose to recognize and celebrate the magical day that I found out that I was pregnant. In fact, I do this with all my children, living or not. My reasoning, I want to go back to that part of my memory and remember how happy I was in that moment. That day. And the days following. The feeling of being on cloud 9 and just in a space of hope and excitement. The days of having an inclining that I had human life growing in me and a future that I was going to help shape to be. Planning, I’m a planner…. after I saw that + I immediately went into planning mode. I was planning the future of our family. I was planning a life, only to later realize I couldn’t grasp the inability to be prepared for something that is unimaginable, like death.
Their “Could-Have-Been” Birthday
I choose to recognize and celebrate their “could-have-been” birthday. Despite not having a specific day, I chose their due date and we celebrate them. We choose to have a mini party. Typically, we have a fun meal together as a family. My husband and I will share a special bottle of wine. We talk about them as a family. We light their candles and my eldest son will talk to the flame as if they were alive. It is something that continues to bring on pain, but at the same moment, it brings us some peace. We choose to celebrate their short life and not focus on their death.
The Anniversary of their Death
I also choose to acknowledge the days that they left us. This may not be a conventional choice. There is also some discrepancy in it. In fact, we didn’t know exactly when our first baby died. As well, when I had my D&C procedure, our second baby was dying and hadn’t actually passed away. This is always a hard day. This is the day that I have to relive the trauma. It is a day that will be forever etched into my mind and a day that cannot be ignored. I will forever grieve on this day.
..But Their Death is Not in Vain
But there is something special to the anniversary of their death… on the one-year anniversary of my miscarriage, my babies gave me the best and most brightest gift of all. They whispered to me that I should take a pregnancy test.
On that morning as I mourned them, I was blessed with growing another life. Did this make the day any less painful? I am not sure. But what I do know is on that morning, I woke unusually early, I was given a push, and felt a strong urge to take that test, and it was positive. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, it wasn’t what I had planned. That morning, I cried in the bathroom by myself, feeling their love wrapped around me, missing them more than ever. I needed that time alone to thank them. That time to embrace their memory and to gather my gratitude for the gift I know they had a part in. Because without their life and without their death, I wouldn’t have my fierce, loving, strong-willed, son, whom I am forever grateful for.
So, this is why I choose to celebrate all the anniversaries, even when they are hard.
If you need further or specialized support, reach out to The Pregnancy and Infant Loss Network through Sunnybrook Hospital. They have so many great resources and support options for you.
