Real or no real?

Don't feel like you are wrong for mourning the loss of a baby that might not have ever existed. You loved him and now he is gone. That is a real loss.

A friend sent me this just a few minutes ago. I have been struggling with this. How to respond to some who think this is not a big deal and we should just move on. Some close friends, some family...I have just withdrawn from to a point; and not giving many the opportunity to love us through this, be there for us...just in case they are one of those who make this pain seem trivial.

I sent an email to my niece Misti, who has really been there for me and feels our pain.

Here is part of it...

I just wanted to say thanks for the calls. I don't know how to talk about it to family. Anyone really. For the most part, people have been supportive and understanding. But, there have been a few who have been a bit insensitive. A few people, who have not called, emailed, came by nothing. I don't know what hurts more.


Some I know think of this loss as a death. That is unequivocally how we feel. He should be 4 days old, laying in his daddy's arms. I should be exhausted from all that comes with being a new mom - not exhausted from tears and sadness. My phone should be exploding from all the pictures and messages and phone calls. He was real. No matter what Rebecca may have done, if she was really pregnant or not...Isaac was really in our hearts, our lives. He has a room, he has stuff, he was real. Maybe not in IL, but in NC he was real.


I don't know how to heal from it. I can't have a funeral. I can't go visit a grave.

I felt like a mom, everything in me was prepared. Heart, soul, body...every ounce of me screamed MOMMY! I pictured in my mind future things that a mommy would plan. His first Halloween. We ordered him a Superman costume. It was a surprise for Scott. Super hero freak he is - I knew he would love it. I planned for only mom and dad, John and Lena being here the day we came home from IL. I wanted them to be the first to hold, love on and spend time with their long awaited grand baby.

I had planned the dedication service down to the music. I wanted to have it at Gilboa, late afternoon with all sorts of candles. Yellow roses, lilies and babies breath filling the whole church with their sweet fragrance. Daddy already agreed to dedicate him to God. John was going to say a prayer and mom was going to sing Consider the Lilies. I wanted to come back here, to his home and have all our families come and eat and share in our new life. I pictured the church so pretty with all our family there. No division for a few hours, just all our families loving our son. Their grandson, nephew, cousin...and now all I picture is this blackness. Emptiness.

I am clueless how to be. How to respond to people who have the mind frame that he wasn't real, I should just get over it. The 'well, at least you didn't get all the way up there. The God has a plan ones get me too. I know He has a plan, I know that He has something in store for us. I just am not to that place where I can accept that Isaac wasn't our plan. For 6 months he was.


We have to get our lives back to some resemblance of normalcy. But, we are not there. My friends who have experienced miscarriages have told me it doesn't happen overnight. They tell me it takes some form of closure which I hope to get. I need to know if she was ever pregnant. I want to know the whys and hows, but I NEED to know if he was ever part of this world. I am not sure how we are going to find out for sure, but I have been sleuthing, my friends have been searching and somehow we will find out.

But, right now I am still in the hurting/grieving stage. Anger hasn't taken over yet. Don't get me wrong, anger is here and is ugly...but, I will get out of this pit and get back to living.

We have this very real pain and having trouble finding the how to book on dealing with it. Don't ask me to write it, I am sucking at dealing with it right now. I think I have permanent wrinkles in my butt from being in bed so much the last 2 days. The weather - I hope - is to blame for my back pain increasing substantially.

Thank you all so much for every positive, encouraging comment - not one negative one. I have gotten so many emails and so many texts that have made me feel somewhat validated to be grieving.

P.S. Burt, Leslie...I love you.