From the Beginning (Trying Again After Stillbirth)

You will build and tear down and rebuild a million times before you decide to have another child after stillbirth. Much of this constant construction will go unnoticed — you are strong, resilient, brave.

You will be so many different women, so many different mothers… to yourself, to your family, to the world.

You will be like a child yourself; so unsure one moment, so free the next. Dreams will turn ashen then kaleidoscopic then back again.

You will question your body — can it support you through the sacred duty of carrying another child to fullness, through bending again to bring that child into light? You will ask darker questions of it too — can it nourish what it once neglected?

You will question your mind — can it endure the pain and risk of offering yourself so completely to another being that may drift from your reach while you sleep, while you labor, while you give? Can it ever be whole again?

You will question God, life itself, your partner, your decisions. You’ll be sure you did something to deserve what happened and will obsess about all of the reasons why.

You will snap and crack, you will be crushed by heaviness some days.

But one day, you will also see the future — and it will surprise you. You will see your body, strong and womanly, like a prayer. You will see your partner, free to dream their own dreams for your family. And you will see another child, finally invited into the circle that is still ragged but no longer cold along it’s edges.

You will drift and slip between these moments, sometimes fearing, sometimes dreaming, but always building.

You will learn again that your body is a Gift that was given but it is also a Giver. You will love it and give to it and tell it that you will allow it to give again too.

And it will, in it’s own time.