Just Out Of Sight, But Always In My Heart by Ebe Manley
Written by Ebe Manley
I was a newly married 24 year-old when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. It was then that I started seeing chubby, bright eyed babies everywhere. Stretched baby bumps, beautiful pregnant mamas. Toddlers holding their parents' hands jumping, bouncing, barely contained balls of energy.
I was devastated when Owen was stillborn a month before his due date. And what had once brought me joy and excitement now ushered in new waves of grief and pain. The mere sight of a baby or a pregnant woman would send me into a full blown panic attack. It was over a year before someone (my doctor) told me I had PTSD. And that those were my triggers. What a messed up, terrible fortune - to have something so angelic, so beautiful turn me into a shaking, tearful, hyperventilating mess.
It has taken time and a lot of counseling but I no longer get panicky around babies or pregnant women. The hyperventilating and the shaking have turned into a deep and personal sadness. Honestly, even eleven years later I still need space from conversations centered around pregnancy, birth and babies. In the world of bereavement, it is what we call being gentle with ourselves. You don't always have to put on a brave front and you certainly don't have to stay in a situation that is causing stress or triggering you.
This November, Owen would be turning twelve. The year after Owen died, my broken heart endured two more losses during pregnancy. I started to believe I would never having living children. I thought that maybe somehow I was doomed for loss, and loss would be all I would ever experience. It was not so for me. I have four beautiful and wild children in my arms. I am so thankful for the four children that call me mommy.
The years have passed slowly and my PTSD is now under control. Babies and pregnant women no longer cause panic attacks. I do not suffer panic and rage from my triggers. But the grief? The aching and sorrow? They are my companions, day in and day out. They have never left. I have made space for them in my home, my heart. I call on them on quiet days when my living children are out playing with friends or on daddy dates. I sit with grief, comfortable and worn like an old blanket. Sewn with tears and soft as silk is my grief over my missing children.
I have been steeped in grief, and grief colors everything.
In the beginning, the colors were gray and dull, with shades of pitch black and searing white blinding me from all other colors. But the colors are brighter now, full and vibrant. The birdsong is louder in my ears. When color and sound returned, they were brighter than I remembered, more beautiful. And when the wind blows my hair and stirs the grief within, I smile at the thought of my three babies… just out of sight, but always in my heart.
They have shown me the full spectrum of this beautiful and hard, sad and joy-filled world. And I am so thankful for them.
