October 15th

Image courtesy of I Am A Mother To An Angel

Everyone knows it's Breast Cancer Awareness month, but sharing the month is an equally important cause, Pregnancy and Infant Awareness month. I have been touched by both.



In honor of Pregnancy and Infant Awareness month, October 15th has been chosen as pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day. To show support it is asked that everyone light a candle at 7pm for an hour in your respective time zone to create a wave of light around the world in remembrance and honor of those lives gone too soon.

Image curtiousy of www.october15th.com

 A Moment
 By Emily Hughes

 Take a moment,
 To Remember,
 All babies gone too soon.

 Take a moment,
 To consider,
 That this could happen to you.

Image curtiousy of www.october15th.com

 Take a moment,
 To respect,
 Those who have lost their heart.

 Take a moment,
 To understand,
 How their world fell apart.

 Take a moment,
 To speak,
 On behalf of a parent in grief.

 Take a moment,
 To listen,
 About our babies lives, too brief.

 Take a moment,
 To light a candle, and spare our babies a thought.

 Take a moment,
 To be inspired,
 By how hard our babies fought.

 Take a moment,
 To honor, those lives lost in unfairness.

 Take a Day,
 To Acknowledge,
 Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness.

 http://www.nwihs.com/pdfs/Dealing_With_Loss.pdf

Image curtiousy of www.iamtheface.org

They say it is estimated 1 in 4 lose a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss. That's only an estimate, but with those odds, chances are you know someone if you haven't experienced it yourself. That means if you include both parents, not to mention grandparents and other loved ones, that number would be lower. That's a whole lot of lives ripped apart, a whole lot of sadness and loneliness because all too often society forces them to hide it and grieve alone. All too often some people judge because they never got to see it that it didn't exist and one just should be able to simply move on like nothing ever happened. Well it was living, and it did exist even if not in their closed minded world, someone mourns that loss. Everyone grieves differently, some it's just the loss of hopes and dreams, others it's the loss of that bond they had already started. There is no wrong way to grieve as long as you are not physically harming yourself. There is no time limit. It may come and go the rest of your life. To those who say you can have another, can you just have another parent, grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin? No, even if another may fill the role, they are unique individuals that cannot simply be replaced.

It wasn't until I personally experienced it myself that I realized just how many people around me had been through it and were never allowed to talk about it. So today, I remember not only my baby, but all the others that were taken too soon. Rest in peace little angels, may heaven exist and we all be reunited one day.