October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month and Capture Your Grief is an initiative where babylost parents are sharing photos with a theme for each day.

It's already the 5th so I am behind a bit, but I do want to participate in some way. I'll catch up with the themes that speak to me the most so far.

Before Loss Self Portrait

Of course, who doesn't say this, but our wedding day was one of the happiest of my life. I felt sure that our next step would be to have a baby within a year or so. I choose this photo rather than one of my pregnancy with Saersha because even though that was an extremely happy time, Saersha was already a rainbow baby after 3 early losses. When I think back to our wedding, that is when I was last naive about loss.

After Loss Self Portrait

After Saersha died I felt washed out like this. I wasn't recognizable to myself. I was in shock and I didn't know what to do with my feelings. I am someone who needs to feel purposeful and my whole purpose was supposed to be to care for Saersha. I was ready to dedicate my life to her. I was so sure it would work out this time and things would finally get back onto a positive track again. My body was so ready and needing to nurture and feed her but she was gone.

Most Treasured Item

Saersha took half of this pendant with her and I have the other half. I wore it everyday and felt it connected me to her. About a month after she died I dropped my half and it broke. I was so distraught and panicked. How could I break this talisman of my child!!! Would she ever forgive me? Where we not connected now? What did it mean? In an attempt at denial I glued it back together immediately. If it wasn't broken for long then I could pretend I never broke it. After fixing it, time passing and calming down a bit I realized that it was even more symbolic. My heart really was/is broken forever but I still have to carry it around and carry on.

Memorial

We didn't have a memorial service for Saersha. We didn't think we could grieve the way we needed to with people around. It was just the two of us saying goodbye to her for the last time. The crematorium staff were very kind to us and gave us enough time and space to do this. I can't bring myself to post a photo of that, but this is the cedar box that we made (with a lot of help since our grief-addled minds could not handle anything but the most basic functions). Many First Nations believe that cedar is sacred and when burned it drives out negative forces. This box was so fragrant with cleansing cedar and it meant so much more to us than the options offered by the funeral home. We sent her off wrapped in the blanket her Nana had knit for her and I filled a small wooden container with breast milk for her. My body was making it for her even though she couldn't use it but I wanted to give it to her in some small way regardless.