When Will it End?

When will babies stop dying?  Really.  When?  Will we see it in our lifetime?  We found out today that people that we have known for over twenty years lost a grandson to stillbirth on Friday.  It's bad enough that babies die...but it seems like it always happens to normal, mainstream people who want and can provide for these children...and the crack whores of the world get to take their babies home every day...babies that some how come out healthy despite living in the most toxic of environments for 9 months.  I just don't get it.  Please join me in sending up prayers, warm thoughts and strength for little Marcus Alexander, his parents and his grandparents as they all begin this long, winding and bumpy journey.

I've been hanging out here in the baby loss blogosphere for over a year now, and it still saddens and amazes me how many people join this club every month.  I spend lots of time wondering how often baby loss happened to people around us before Gracie died...how many happened that we were/are completely blind to???  On the other side of the coin, I find it amazing that so many women here find a way to offer some kind of amazing service to help us remember our little ones and help bring baby loss (in general) to light.

It all makes me wonder about the BLMs who never look for or find online support of any kind.  They don't find BCC, Daily Strength, Still Babies or the baby loss blogosphere.  I wonder what their support is like.  Do they go to a real life support group that provides everything they need?  Do they go to counseling that meets all of their emotional needs?  Do they know other BLMs (in real life) that they can lean on?  Do they have some other kind of outlet or do they just wing it from one day to the next?  And what about the BLDs?  There are so few of them openly floating around online.  And how many of them are like my hubby, who with lots of nudging and encouragement, finally nosed around online for fathers groups/forums only to find that most of them had been infiltrated by women?  (And in his words, "what's the point of going online to have women tell me how to grieve?  I already get it everywhere I go...on a daily basis.")  Do most of them just suck it up in true man-style and have periodic meltdowns when no one else is looking?  Are they ready to explode?  Certainly, they can't all be as "okay" as they claim to be.

I think about the time that I have spent here in the blogosphere and a few other online support forums.  I have met so many wonderfully supportive women here, some of whom I have come to know quite well and communicate with on a regular basis.  We are all so different, yet we have one common and very unique bond - the death of our babies.  I sometimes wonder what my post-Gracie life and grieving process would be like if I had not met these women, especially the ones that I communicate with on a regular basis. Sometimes I wonder what life in general would be like without these women...with or without Gracie. 

I think about my grief and how it sometimes just spins.  There is no doubt that sometimes it spins because I come here and write or read and bring myself down; on the other side of the coin, there is no doubt that there are times that I come here because I am just spinning endlessly and can't break out of it.  Sometimes I wonder if the spinning would stop if I just stopped participating as a member of the baby loss community all together - blogging, support group, FB - and then I realize how utterly ridiculous of a thought that really is.  There is no way to not be a member of this community anymore.  It is a bell that cannot be unrung, and it is a bell that automatically starts the spinning. 

In closing, I want to send warm thoughts, hugs and love to Maggie, Margaret and Laura.  On a happier note, if you don't know about Tina's 25 Days of Giveaways, check it out!  It will kick off soon!  Wishing you all a peaceful week!!