Dear little Spider Baby

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  I don't want to let this day pass without saying that I will always remember you, my little Spider Baby and that I still think about you every day.  I fell in love with you as a blurry fluttering heart on a screen.  I said goodbye to you as a sadly still baby-shape floating in a much too large sac.  Your loss was painful physically and devastating emotionally.  I never believed you were there until you were gone.

Everyday as I get out of the shower I look at myself in the mirror and I miss you.  I wish so much that you were still with me.  Today would have been twelve weeks before your due date.  By now you would have either confirmed my suspicions that you were a boy or surprised me that you weren't.  I would be spending my days lovingly counting the number of times you painfully kicked me in the ribs.  Your Daddy would probably be starting to put things on my stomach while we watched TV to see if you could kick them off.  Strangers would be putting their hands on my stomach and asking me when I was due.  Your bladder kicks would have me rushing to the bathroom every few minutes.  My back would be aching, my boobs would be even bigger (I know, crazy right?), my stretch marks would be multiplying, I'd be exhausted from never being able to find a position to sleep in and I'd be the annoying preggo walking around with her hand rubbing her stomach.  Your Daddy would be replacing the windows in your room so it would be warm when you were born and we'd be painting the walls and finding a place to put all of the junk that has accumulated there over the years.  I would have loved it all.

Your loss confuses me.  I feel incredible sadness at the loss of possibility but I don't know how to think of you.  I feel like I don't know where I belong anymore.  Am I still infertile?  Am I part of the community of loss?  My loss seems so small sometimes and other times it seems to be the largest thing in my life. I only knew you were there for two months.  I never allowed myself to feel unmitigated joy about your presence.  How can you have had such an impact on me when you were so small that no one else even knew you were there?  I feel guilty that you're gone.  Could I have done something to stop it?  How could I have not known that your heart stopped beating three weeks before my body was ready to let you go?

I found this ring several months ago and I wear it everyday to remember you.  It is made of amber -- a stone of healing.  It looks like a sun and I like that it has eight large rays that remind me of a spider.  It sometimes catches the sunlight and glows with a beautiful red.  It won't let me forget that it is there -- sometimes the points poke my finger or it snags on a sweater and I remember it.  I like that.  When I remember it, I remember you.  People comment on it and it makes me think wistfully about you.  Until now, I've only shared its meaning with your Daddy and your Grandmother.


I don't know where I think you are right now.  I hate to think that you existed and then you were just gone.  I don't believe in heaven or angels but I like to imagine you in some sort of cosmic waiting room of souls.  A place of energy and emotions.  Maybe you're getting ready to send down a little brother or sister soul to be with us.  I hope so.  Please do.  Let them know how much we loved you and how much we will love them.

I feel your loss more some days and less other days.  Today has been a constant reminder.  From seeing October 15th on the calendar to having to smile as the visitor in my office told me conspiratorially all about the "sad colleagues he knew who were 52 and never even had kids but fill their empty lives with Worlds of Warcraft"  and then dared to complain about the parents of their college students and how he had to tell them "I'm sorry, but until you have kids, you just don't know anything.  You can't say anything."  I turned your ring on my finger and just stared at him and thought about you.

Thank you for being there for a while.  Thank you for changing me. 

Love always,
Your Spider Mama