Permission

One of the hardest things about dealing with a miscarriage is that everything outside tells you to just get over it and move on. For a while, I had a huge conflict in my head between feeling the most profound grief I'd ever felt, and a weird feeling that I wasn't supposed to feel that way.

The world keeps turning. No one knew the baby but me, so no one grieved him quite like I did. There was no funeral, and few people even knew about the pregnancy in the first place. When someone (not in the know) says hi and casually asks, "How are you?" - how do you tell them in one moment that a whole life has passed by?

Indeed, in hindsight, it went by so quickly. Some days, I wonder if it was all just a dream.

Comforting words and advice from well-meaning loved ones can really sting, especially when they strike up that same conflict in my head. 

"It was probably very sick so it's better this way." 

"Don't think about it, you need to move on."

On a good day, I can rationalize to myself that they mean well. On a bad day, it's really hard to hear, "Don't feel the way you feel."

Feelings are feelings. They're just there. You can't help them, and you can't make them go away... at least, not without replacing them with something else. Like guilt for feeling so sad in the first place.

The best piece of advice I received from a dear friend was: 

Give yourself permission to feel whatever it is that you need to feel. 

I have. And I just wanted to put this out there, in case you, or anyone you know, need to hear it too.