Society's Taboo

It probably seems like I'm writing a lot about my loss lately. I didn't expect that when i came back to the blog. After all, this is our family blog, not Lyla's blog. Which brings me to what I'm going to say next. Society seems to push those of us who lose a child to the corners of life. Hidden away for no one to see. Losing a child, brands you and forces you to live in a new dimension. An alternate world because society is so afraid of death and loss. No one wants to hear about it or talk about it.
Babycenter is a large, widely popular, pregnancy forum for women trying to conceive, pregnant, and with small children. Along with the wide array of information available, there are thousands of 'boards' that you can join and post with other moms or mom-to-be's. This place was my safe haven when we found out Lyla was sick. I pretty much left my July 2011 Birth Board all together and joined a Carrying Pregnancy Despite Poor/Fatal Diagnosis Board. This board was full of women pregnant with their baby's that were dying. These women have been my support. I feel closer to many of them than many of my friends and I have never met any of them face to face. We cross over to a private Life After board, after our babies have died and gone to heaven. In 'our world' we talk about our angels, talk about our rainbows, and vent about people who just don't get it.
Some of 'those' people have inspired this post. On a current Birth Board recently I came cross a woman's post telling her board that she wants anyone who mentions a loss, to include the word 'trigger' in the title. She was sick and tired of hearing about these late losses and them catching her off guard. She was a first time mom and hearing that some people's baby's die, scared her and she was so freaked out, she wanted to put a stop to it.
This is a perfect example of what baby loss moms face after we pull ourselves off the ground and force ourselves to join in the world again. People are freaked out by death and loss, particularly a child, that they don't want to hear about it. It makes people uncomfortable.
Therefore, we can't speak of our dead baby for fear it may offend someone... it may scare someone, or 'ruin' someone's blissful pregnancy. The list goes on. 'Those' people would probably have a problem with me posting anything regarding Lyla on this blog. Afterall, this is our family blog. Anything regarding loss should be posted on Lyla's blog, because then at least the reader would be aware and could choose not to read it. But because I posted here, and didn't put TRIGGER, you're reading this now and are mad that the seed of death has been planted in your mind.
The world wants to be protected by people like 'us'. To them, baby loss moms like myself, can either walk around in life forgetting our child and never speaking of them again, protecting their perfect view of reality. Or we can wear a mask with a branded symbol, alerting the world we've experienced the death of a baby- warning everyone to avoid us like the plague. They don't want us raining on anyone's parade.
I refuse to forget about my child. My dead child is just as much apart of my life and vocabulary as my living child. I refuse to refer to my child as a TRIGGER for fear that I need to alert anyone listening, that they may want to cover their ears before I speak of her. For all the people that agree that speaking about a dead child should come with some warning... time for people to 'opt out' if they feel uncomfortable, just know I used to see living children as a trigger. What if I made everyone hide their kids and pregnancies from me? I'd be met with ridicule. Yet somehow people feel the need to force grieving parents into a corner, to grieve separately, on our own, away from scaring society.
Now, having a living child as well, I've started the beginning stages of meeting other moms and young babies- developing some friendships to form play groups. It's hard as a grieving parent, to juggle the death of one child and life of another. There's a degree of seperation between parents with a loss and parents without a loss. It's sometimes difficult for me to put aside my loss of Lyla to just focus on Harlow. I think it has to do with the fact that Lyla is our firstborn. People who don't know us well, see Harlow and think she's our first child. So as I'm starting to get to know groups of moms, I almost feel the need to hide that part of myself, to match the giddiness of the other first time moms with their 'one baby', in order to fit in. We can connect over parenting our living children, only I have a second area, that longs to connect to someone. But that's where my support group comes in, who I am thankful for everyday.
Society wants to push us to the far edges of the earth where we can't hurt, scare or traumatize anyone by speaking about the loss of our child. But while you're sitting there freaked out over the THOUGHT of something happening to your baby, something DID happen to my baby. And while you're sobbing over the seed that I now planted in your head regarding the THOUGHT of having to struggle to live life after a loss. This IS my life after loss. And it's going to be spoken of.