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.
