The "go to" girl

7 months today. I'm 7 months into being "that girl who's baby died". Does it make me some kind of expert on death or just death of babies? In some ways I would agree that it does and in other ways, I'm still learning every single day.

In the last few months, I have noticed a lot of people asking me for advice. "My friend lost her baby, what should I say?", My niece lost her baby, what can I do for her?", "I delivered my baby stillborn, where do I go from here?". I've become the "go to" girl for baby loss and I have to say, nothing makes my heart heal quite like being able to help someone else.

I remember slightly typing up an early blog post that read "I don't know if there is a silver lining to a dead baby". I will still agree that there is not a silver lining, but there is something very reassuring deep inside of me that says "This is where you belong and you are going in all the right directions". Call it what you will, I call it "God".

The biggest thing I've noticed about my grief is that it is always changing. One day, I can look it directly in the eyes and tell it "get out of my way, I have things to do today", and other days It takes a hold of me, throws me down and leaves me shuddering in the corner. It does not care what day it is, if I have something planned or somewhere to be. It doesn't care if the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day, a pillow covered in tears is what it wants... right then, right now. I've always hated surprises and I hate that one the most.

I have made it a point to tell the people who ask for my advice that no matter what anyone says, there are no rules in this journey...none. You do what you want and when you want. There is no timeline because time means nothing anymore. One day, you can feel strong and ready to face the world and the next you get thrown back to the day you buried your baby...tears wont stop....nothing helps....words are words and you don't want to hear them anyway.

For me, in this stage that I'm in now, I dislike different things than I did when I first starting writing The frog blog. Now, I dread "the pity face". You know, they tilt their head a little to the right, place their hand somewhere "comforting" and say "I'm so sorry". I'm grateful for their concern but it gets really exhausting. Let me make this clear, just because I don't want the puppy dog face, does not mean I don't want you to be sensitive to the fact that less than a year ago I buried my first born child. He was not a figment of my imagination, he was not a embryo, he can not be replaced by another baby ( mine or anyone else's). He was a baby...my baby.
Anyone else's meaning when I'm holding or looking at a baby, I'm not thinking of taking off running with it tucked in my shirt and heading to a different state and dying my hair black and renaming the baby Brody. One, I'm not crazy, two, I know very well that the only baby I want right now is mine and it is humanly impossible to get him back. Yes, I get a little sad when I see a baby and I become impossibly aware that mine is dead, but I'm impossibly aware of that all day, everyday....no smiling, adorable little baby is going to make my day worse, I promise.

I know it is hard to spell out and draw a map for this experience but I think that is why I continue to write this blog. For me and for other grieving angel mommies. It's hard to look someone in the face and tell them how you feel and how you want to be treated. I know because, I still cannot do it. I can type and write until I'm blue in the face but to look at someone and tell them to stop tiptoeing around Brody and to just say his name is something I could just never do. I want to talk about him, I would talk about him all day everyday if I could and I probably do sometimes.

There are people who" just get it" and it always amazes me. I don't expect everyone to get it, actually I don't expect anything from anyone but let me tell you that it makes me appreciate the people who do a lot. For those of you who are curious as to how to act around me and other grieving mothers perhaps,  Here is a little example of what I mean:

One night, Adam and I were out by ourselves. We were surrounding by mostly Adam's guy friends. I was feeling very alone and realized the reason was because no one there was comfortable talking about Brody. I don't want to just talk about him but a lot of my life revolves around Brody. He is my inspiration for B  Bands and inspiration for my coming years. I want to be able to mention his name without getting looked at like I had just picked my nose and ate it for goodness sakes. I txt a friend and said " No one wants to talk about Brody :(", Her reply was " I will talk about him, I love that little shit". That's exactly what I needed, he was no longer the pink elephant in the room, he wasn't a distant memory, he was my son.

7 months today. Angelversaries aren't always bad. Today, I'm remembering, I'm saying his name out loud, and I'm smiling for the fact that I was totally blessed with an amazing little angel!