November 10, 2010

As the holidays are fast approaching, I decided to bulk up my coping skills and support network by attending a grief support group last night. It was a group specifically for family members who have lost a child either during pregnancy or infancy. I had gone to the group once last year at this time and decided to give it another try. I am feeling very self-conscious these days that I am still grieving. It's been two and a half years since we lost Harper, and while I know that grieving is a long process, I don't believe that people in general understand that. Thus my self-consciousness. It's not that I'm in the throws of sorrow on a daily basis (here's my self-consciousness again wanting to explain to people how normal I am - ha), it's just that the holidays are darn hard.

Because we were specifically trying to get pregnant when we got pregnant with Harper, I happen to know that we conceived her if not on Thanksgiving day (which I believe because of my meticulous charting), then on Thanksgiving weekend. Needless to say, the holiday has a whole different layer to it now. For months, no, well actually for well over a year, I was asked at every appointment when my last period was prior to getting pregnant, so of course November 12, 2008, is a date that doesn't go by without notice.

I'm not going to go into detail about my fantasies of what family life would be like during the holidays with Harper. But they're there. I thought about what it would be like to have her, just over two years old, during this time of year. I thought about that when she was growing inside me, fluttering around, my little hummingbird.

So all these thoughts and accompanying feelings have been ganging up on me a little lately, and I went to the group last night. It is SO hard to go to a support group with strangers and to open up about something so incredibly personal. It is even harder to open the wound and to hear the pain of so many other people too. I fought off feelings of hopelessness as I listened to all the heartache and loss contained in that room. But it's a place I can go where I know I will be understood. So many heads nodded in agreement and understanding with the things I said. I don't have to feel self-conscious there about grieving.

We ended the group with sharing what we were thankful for about our babies. I loved that the leader talked about our babies. I might have been seeking that out more than anything last night. That acknowledgement that Harper was my baby. It's a strange thing, but I have this feeling that because the other people in my life for the most part didn't ever get to see her or hold her or feel her move, that to them she wasn't a real person - a baby. But she was. I have to fight the urge to whip out pictures of her to show to people to prove that in fact I had a baby. I fully acknowledge that this assumption could be all in my own head, but it's there nonetheless. I've been thinking that having a memorial service for her could go a long way in helping me to acknowledge her "realness" and thereby help me heal. But I don't know . . .

Anyway. As I was saying, we ended the group with sharing what we were thankful for about our babies. My cheeks were wet with tears the entire time, so to say that I started crying then wouldn't exactly be accurate because I don't think I really stopped crying from the moment I sat down. A whole new wave of tears swept over me when I said I was thankful that I got to see what a child that Jeremy and I created together looked like, and I was thankful for the night I gave birth to her, which was the most sacred and beautiful night of my life.

I'm trying to focus on the things I'm looking forward to about the holidays: the cooking, the baking, the company, and all the fun activities, but it's a balancing act. I just need to give myself permission to let my feelings be what they are and to be authentic. It's getting better. Last year I didn't break down sobbing at the Thanksgiving table the way I did the year before that. Maybe even this year I'll be able to include Harper in a prayer of gratitude as I reflect on all the things for which I'm thankful.