You've experienced a loss that changed everything. And yet, somehow, the world around you just kept going. You're stuck in a before and after that you never asked for and certainly could not have imagined! You're in the strange in between space of where everything looks normal on the outside, but nothing feels normal on the inside. What is "normal" anyway, really? People around you are full of laughter having a good time, making plans and talking about the future while you while you’re still carrying the grief that they can’t see. You wonder how you are supposed to be join in when everything feels so different now. At the most random moment something reminds you of your due date that will come but your baby has already died, the clothes that you'd prepared to be wearing by now that would be comfortable enough for a growing belly, and the way your body feels like both a reminder and a betrayal. You're so tired of being "strong" and shrinking your grief so that others can feel comfortable. You are sick of the weight of pregnancy loss crushing you and nobody else can see, feel or understand it. You've perfected the smile that hides what you're really feeling and you are completely over saying that you are fine when you're anything but!

You’re not sure how to answer when someone asks, “How are you?” because nothing feels simple anymore. You’re not the same as you were before, and maybe you never will be. It feels like you’re moving through life in slow motion, while everyone else has pressed fast-forward. You see pregnant women and children everywhere. At the grocery store, at work, in every commercial, and every social media scroll. And each time, there's a heaviness in your chest that serves as the most painful reminder of what you no longer have but made preparation for: your baby to come home with you from the hospital. Seeing pregnant women and children is like being haunted by your reality that has not sunk in yet over and over and over again. Every day that you wake up, the weight of having empty arms makes it hard to get out of bed. Weeks ago, your tribe stopped asking about how you're doing. You believe that they think enough time has passed or maybe they never knew what to say in the first place. Perhaps they're relieved that they don't have to sit with your sadness anymore and you convince yourself to be understanding.

Grief makes people uncomfortable and it makes you feel invisible. You thought that you'd feel different by now. Better, somehow. Yet instead, you feel like you're pretending to care about things that used to matter. Pretending that hearing "everything happens for a reason" doesn't make you want to slap them or "at least you can try again" doesn't feel like a knife twisting in your chest. Some days you wonder if you are doing "this all wrong." If you should be healing faster, crying less, and moving on like everyone else has suggested. But you also wonder how could you when you still carry the ache of pregnancy loss? You still carry the love you have for your child and that will never change! If others haven't shown up for you it doesn't diminish the significance of what you've been through. You don't have to match anyone else's timeline for healing. Your loss deserves more than being quietly tucked away because it makes others uncomfortable or because "enough time has passed."