I used to be horrified by photos of stillborn babies. I didn’t want to see them. I never stopped to think of them as someone’s baby, but saw them just as a dead baby. I’ve never had anyone close to me die before, and I didn’t understand the need for a connection with the dead. They were dead, I would think to myself. What does it matter?

On March 6th I held the dead body of my baby carefully in my arms, cradled like I would a live baby. I looked at him and felt so much love. My eyes blurred with tears I looked past his death to see the little boy that he was… that he should have been.

I keep his photo close to me at all times. I keep it on my websites, I keep it on a frame in my living room. It seems normal to me now. Sometimes I forget that it’s a photo of him in death. The other day I was searching through a folder on my computer and came across the original version of the photo. It shocked me, for a moment. I forgot that’s how he’d really looked like that day, that’s what he’d really looked like in that photo, in death. But I feel no guilt at using a touched-up photo. To me the photo shows him as he really looked like, when he was alive. It’s a true photo of my son – not his empty body.

When I come across photos of stillborn babies now my heart aches. I no longer see dead babies. I see loved babies, missed babies. Lost potential, broken dreams. I smile when I see the beautiful faces of someone else’s angel. I know how they feel now. I know what they see when they look at the photo. I picture that child alive, how they should be. I cry for all the parents who will forever mourn a loss. It just shouldn’t happen… it’s too cruel. But it does. It happens too often.

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Sometimes what we’ve gone through is almost incomprehensible. I have been through the worst loss a person could imagine, and I have survived. I can no longer shrug off thoughts of my inner strength. I survived. I don’t always have good days, obviously. But at the same time I get the sense I am dealing with this all very well. I have not relapsed into depression (other than some spotty days, and I can accept that). I have not collapsed.

I was talking to Kel for a while about how we each feel about pregnancy now… and in many ways she is more scarred than I am by our combined experiences this past year. I am not ready to throw in the towel. I am not ready to let go of my joy and wonder of the experience. There is a worry that my fear will eclipse it, and I expect it will some days. But I don’t think it will all the time, or even most of the time. Shitty things happen, and I accept that. I accept crappy odds. But I also believe that 99% of the time everything is okay.

I want another natural birth. Having been through it once, I walked away from it with a completely empowered view on it. Going through labor was… amazing. Talking about it with my friend Carrie we both remarked that it seemed like it was two separate events in my head… the labor, and Devin’s death. It was the worst day of my life, by far… dealing with his passing, saying goodbye. But the labor experience itself was far easier than I ever pictured it. I gave myself to the contractions, I let my body do its job, and it felt amazing. I am still in awe at what our bodies were made to do. Not getting that epidural was the best thing that could have happened that horrible day. It gave me back some faith in my body.

In fact I’ve still been thinking about the possibility of maybe becoming a doula in the future. I don’t know if it is something that will ever materialize, and I don’t think the time is right yet – I would like to have a live birth under my belt, as well as breastfeeding – but I still feel very strongly about it, especially now having been through an unmedicated birth. I just enjoy the process so much… and I feel like I want to be involved somehow. I wish I could attend a birth just to see if it’s something I am interested in pursuing… but it’ll have to wait, I guess. No one I know (locally, I mean) is having a baby anytime soon. (Though I am thankful for that for other reasons. I need some more time to heal before tackling any more live babies that aren’t mine.)

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I really am okay today. No tears. No feelings of despair. Like I said yesterday… just disappointment. It would have been nice, you know? And there is that little bit of fear peeking around a corner inside my head, but I’m ignoring it right now other than reminding myself that we have a plan. I think after my next BFN I will make an appointment with the RE to talk about other possibile steps to try. I’m okay with giving my body a fair try at this, but I also need to have a backup plan in place.