I don't want to do this anymore. I am spending so much time these days pretending to be unphased by all that I don't have. I can't even get on facebook without being reminded of all that I am missing. Where are my happy pictures of my sweet newborn? Where are my frustrated posts about late nights and fussy feedings? I want to feel happy again and I am not quite sure that I ever truly will be. My every waking moment is tempered with the loss of my son. I can't even begin to describe the nauseous feeling I get when I think of living the rest of my life with this loss. I feel like I am staring down a very long dark tunnel with no hope of an exit. I logically know that someday this pain and emptiness will lessen, but it feels very permanent now. How do you go on when your child could not? I feel so sad that his sweet body betrayed him and mine did not. I want to tell everyone I see that my son died. I want to wear a sign so everyone will ask me and I can tell them all about him and his too short life. But, I am becoming all too aware that this will be my secret from the rest of the world. I read a blog that a friend of mine recommended to me written by "babylost parents." One passage in particular seems appropriate here:

You look at your friend and all of a sudden her words are just a jumble of mumbles, because her language is no longer yours.

Oh, you will never know, you will never understand. How I can still put hot food on the table and get out of the house looking decent, when every muscle in my body is aching for my baby. You have no idea. You have no idea how much strength, and how much courage I need to muster, with clenched fists and gnashed teeth, in order to get through every second of the day, until I finally collapse at the end of it. Behind every thought is the question, “Why is he not here? Why can’t he be here?” Every cell in my body writhes in pain with the memory of the loss, and the void. Every glance I take is in search of my baby. Every breath I take is caustic with reminders of what I have lost. My skin burns to feel the softness of my baby against me; my arms ache to hold and nourish and love. My fingers stretch out in an attempt to hold, but I do not even have memories, except of the pain and shock. My loss is the front-page of my brain every time it gets turned on, even if many pages are running at the same time. Oh, you have no idea what it is, how it is, to live life like this.

But I don't tell the pregnant lady in the grocery store or the tired young Mom shopping in my store. I want to tell them how lucky they are or how thankful they should be because their baby didn't die. I wish I could have my blissful ignorance back. And just because I have lost mine, does not mean I should steal others.