Today was the second panel I was on (Cathi made three presentations over two days). I had the honor of being able to attend her full presentation last night, she’s a fantastic speaker.

I am so thankful for all of the caregivers who attended her sessions. I saw tears, I saw nods, I saw heads shake when Cathi (or one of the parents) mentioned something awful that happened or was said to a bereaved mother. They wanted to do the right thing by their patients. Grief is such a hard, hard thing. How do you know what to say? What to do? I can only imagine the fear I would feel as a caregiver if a patient lost a baby and I had no experience with that. But I really feel like this area has some good hospitals and great staff who are willing to take something like this and incorporate it into their practices. I even learned that in the past year the hospital that I birthed at has become aware of Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep to offer it to bereaved parents, which is fantastic.

Writing and talking at length about Devin has made me realize that I still have a lot of things about it all that I haven’t worked through. I’m okay with that, I’m okay with taking a break from grieving to focus on Kate. But it still surprised me when I got choked up. And it surprised me, too, how much I wanted to talk about him. Every time someone would say something about their experience I had all these thoughts bubbling up, all this thing I wanted to say – not because I felt anyone needed to hear it, but because I wanted to say it out loud. I think I need to start jotting things down so I can write it out later.

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I have a lot of interests and passions, and somehow they (almost) all revolve around babies. That’s kind of funny to me, since babies or kids were never on my radar. I’m not sure how to pursue all of them, but they all feel important to me somehow.

Infertility and loss are very entwined in my own experiences, but in the world they’re often discussed and addressed in completely separate terms. In fact with a lot of my loss support groups I am careful to not mention the infertility for the simple reason that I don’t want to make it sound like my loss is “worse” than someone else who doesn’t have an infertility baby – the loss of a baby is horrendous and unfathomable, no matter what. And on the other side, too, I don’t want to minimize anyone’s pain of infertility if they have never had a loss (though in so many ways failed cycles during infertility treatments really are like losses). I exist in both worlds and recognize that not everyone does. Both are a lasting part of me, both are important to me, and I want to continue to be supportive and active in both.

As I have mentioned I belong to a loss support group that is wonderful and I would like to continue to be active with that group. I also would really like to find some way to help the hospital where I gave birth, though I’m not sure how. I have some thoughts about volunteering my photography through Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, as I know there is always a need for photographers and there’s not always someone available. But that is extremely heavy work and I can only imagine what of my own experiences it would trigger for me to work through, I am not sure I’m quite “there” yet. Not to mention it is an on-call type of thing and I have a 4 month old who breastfeeds (and apparently won’t sleep for anyone but me).

And then there is the more normal range, the “other side,” the I love birthing babies and breastfeeding and stuff. I go to local breastfeeding support groups (one at the hospital with an LC, the other is a LLL meeting). I have thoughts on becoming a doula, but again there’s that availability with a young child issue.

As I have had more time at the computer (yay exersaucer and naps in the bedroom!) I find myself reading more blogs – not necessarily personal blogs, but informational ones, too. A lot of times I want to share things, and I don’t necessarily want to bombard Facebook with all of it, I doubt my relatives and old school buddies really want to read all about the newest research in boobs. So this blog may be continuing to evolve. It is, of course, about my journey as a mother, but I may start using it as a scrapbook of ideas and articles and other interesting tidbits, along with my thoughts and processing of all of it. I’ve considered starting another blog for all of that, but then how do I separate out things? It just gets complicated. Maybe I’ll just start using categories, if I can manage to do that without becoming completely anal about it.