How to invite a grieving mother to a baby shower.

Sometimes people just don't realize that a person who has experienced a loss doesn't feel like partying or celebrating.  If I lost my husband, I wouldn't want to go to my friend's husband's birthday party because all i would be thinking about is the husband i don't have.  Now the same would go for someone who has lost a baby (no matter what age the baby was)  I don't want to celebrate a baby shower for someone else because all I'll be thinking about is the baby I don't have.

It comes with great disrespect and great insult to a grieving person to have someone just come out and say "You're invited to the baby shower!"
What did you just say?  A baby shower?  Are you kidding me? You didn't even mention that I just lost my baby and you expect me to attend someone else's baby shower when I'm completely overwhelmed with jealousy towards them because I want the joy their experiencing and not this grief.  Sorry, I won't be there.

Does this mean I'm not happy for her who is pregnant?  No?  I'm so happy that she is in a place of joy, that she is not suffering the intense pain that I am, that she is able to move forward with life while my life stands still.  I'm just not able to face her with a the joy that she deserves, I'll just be a puddle of tears.  She doesn't need that in her time of joy.

Am I jealous of her?  Absolutely.  I want what she has.  I want everything she has.  I want people doeting over me with my pregnancy.  I want people to feel my tummy and get excited when the baby kicks.  I want to feel the love and bond with my baby as I feel him moving around inside of me.  I want to sing to my baby.  I want to have my husband put his ear down to my tummy and say "I love you baby, I can't wait to see you."  I want to have my girls put their warm hands on my big round tummy and have them giggle when they feel the baby move and roll and elbow them.  I want the heartburn, I want the food aversions, I want to be up ever hour at night because I have to pee.  I want to walk with the waddle.  I want to have tender breasts because of the colostrum forming (which by the way, my colostrum did form and my breasts did fill up 3 days after the birth with milk.  I just didn't have a baby to feed it to so I had to ice my breasts to make the milk go away, rather than putting on warm wash cloths to excrete the milk...I'll tell more of this story on another day when I feel like telling the whole story of what happened, even if you were there...there's so much more).  I want to look in my closet and think there's nothing to wear because I've grown out of it all.  I want to go to the thrift store and buy more maternity clothes (which I did just 4 days before it happened...I bought about 5 pairs of maternity pants and 8 maternity shirts, which are now in my closet in honor of my baby Westley.  I won't give these clothes to anyone, they were for Westley and him alone.  Maybe one day I will give them to a person I will never see wearing them.  Maybe I'll keep them forever.  Maybe I'll pass them on to my girls.  Maybe I'll ship them to New Foundland so someone can use them whom I'll never meet.  But for now, they are all his.  I didn't get to wear them, but they were for him.)  I want all of it, I want the hours and hours of labor and especially I want the baby that would have been layed on my chest to me straight out of my womb alive, heart beating and breathing. (my baby's heartbeat was strong and good even in the surgery, even though my uterus ruptured, the doctors thought there was nothing wrong obstetrically because the baby's heartbeat was strong and well.  They took me into surgery because they lost my blood pressure and after several attempts of finding it got a reading of 30/32  I was bleeding internally, but they didn't think it had anything to do with the pregnancy, maybe gall bladder, maybe spleen, they had two surgeons there, a general surgeon and an obstetrician...until they opened me up and found my live baby had already been delivered out of my uterus into my abdomen.  The baby never died inside, they had to remove him because the placenta ruptured with the uterus and there was little blood flow to him, but he still had a strong beating heart.)

If I were to give a lesson on how to approach a person who has lost a loved one, especially a baby to miscarriage, still birth, infant or child death, uterine rupture like me or anything else, and someone wanted to invite them to a baby shower this is what i would say:

"Hi, I've been thinking about you, you've been on my heart a lot lately."   Whether it's true or not, say it, they need to hear that someone values them. "And I've been praying for you."   She will probably say 'really?' or 'thank you' because she will feel like no body cares and maybe not believe that you've been praying for her, and if you haven't then just before you make the call say 'Lord I pray you will comfort ... and help me have compassion towards them'  there, now it's true, you have prayed for them. " I am so sorry for the loss of your sweet baby Westley John."  Very important to mention the baby's name, it gives honor to the life that existed instead of not saying the baby's name and pretending like he never came, never lived, never meant something...he meant a whole world of dreams, a whole world.  Don't worry about upsetting her in case she's having a good day, it never leaves her mind, you won't upset her any further than she's been already.  Really you won't, no matter even if she is smiling.  You'll actually do a world of good because it will let her know that in the midst of her sadness and emptiness there's someone who cares, and for her to know this, it actually makes her feel deep inside that she is loved, regardless of her belief in God, which is really important because she will feel like it was her fault and the whole world blames her for the loss of the baby that was going to be a brother or a grand child or a nephew or a cousin or a playmate.  "I want you to know how important you are to me, and how deeply I feel, and will continue to feel, for you." She had the compassion from others when it happened but now that some time has passed she feels like nobody remembers and that the loss that's so deep in her heart doesn't matter to anyone anymore, it's important to say 'will continue to feel for you' because then at least she will know that in the midst of her sadness which comes and goes she's got someone whom she can remember continues to care.  "It must be incredibly painful." It is incredibly painful, soulfully painful, indescribably painful, so painful that you will never know how it feels no matter if you've lost a loved one or if you've lost a baby yourself. 

Don't pretend to know how it feels and more importantly don't say 'I know how it feels' because everyone grieves differently and you won't know how they are feeling.  When you say 'It must be incredibly painful'  you will give them a breath of fresh air, an incredible sense that it's ok for them to feel the pain, even though you want to take the pain away, and it will help them release the tension they've been feeling that they think nobody understands, especially if it's been some time now. To her she'll be thinking 'omg it's ok to feel this way, I'm not crazy, I'm just human, and this person is acknowledging that, thank goodness I'm not alone and my baby isn't forgotten'. 

Go on to say: "I'll completely understand if you don't feel like coming, but I wanted to include you and make sure you

Home Schooling

Today, one of our home school discussions was about the settlers and how Columbus and Cabot came over to the Americas thinking it was Asia!  We talked about the way the settlers put on a "crown" when they settled in America and took over the aboriginal land.  Then the socials studies discussion went on to talk about how the Europeans took land and it became what we now know as Crown Land.  Then they sold off pieces to people and the people had private land  to build houses and make a home for their families, but also had to pay taxes to the Crown. Then the discussion went even further and got more exciting.  We got into talking about zoning, and how each area is given a label such as residential, commercial, parks, industrial, aboriginal land...Kaneeka really loved the discussion and I saw many "lightbulbs" going off in her mind. 
"Oh that's what it means to pay property tax."  "Yes, it's our duty to honor the country we live in...beautiful and diverse Canada." "Even your Nanaji (grandpa) is a settler. He was the first in our family to travel from India and come to Canada to live here and have a family here."

Now, off to the hot tub for a swim!
Spending quality time with my kids is the best!  I feel like dancing!
......
it's been a few hours since i left this draft on my desktop and now we've studied the makings of sound, and energy.  How does sound happen?  Close your eyes and

 In between the posts that I have shared with you I have beautiful joyful days that are filled with hope and gratitude.  I have come to realize many things about life, here's one of them: I've been given each and every moment and that's all that i have, I don't know what will happen in the next 10 minutes or in the next 12 years but I have now and this moment.

I've chosen to take the moments of life and share them with the ones i love.  Today I was given moments with my Sasha and we put together a giant floor puzzle, we laughed and had so much fun.  I was given moments of with my Kaneeka and hugged and giggled, we all walked down to the river and listened to the water running.  We were given moments and we threw prayer "wishing" rocks in the water.  We were given moments and skipped and sang la la la la along the path.  I was given a moment with my husband and locked eyes with him and kissed him tenderly.  I was given moments with the Lord and felt His mighty arms of love wrap right around me.  I was given a very precious moment with a dear friend who said some incredibly profound things that gave my broken heart healing, not just healing, immense healing.

"Your grief is precious, Sital, don't let anyone quench the process. You will bless others when you've completed your journey. To rush it through now is to only crash later. Looks pretty for everyone else right now but it will be really ugly when you have to face it all over again because it was shoved down."


So come to me with your compassion friend and thank you for your compassion...I will come out on the other side soaring like an eagle full of compassion for you ready to take you on my wings.

The Christmas season has come and gone.  I am daily fighting with myself about where I am at.  Grief is taking a hold of me again.  I feel down, I feel so so soooooooo confused.  I also feel pretty alone.  I know that God is with me, and last night I cried on Jesus' lap.  It was such a relief to cry.  I feel like the whole world has moved on and then there's me.  I'm still here with a hole in my heart, and no baby in my arms.  It's becoming more and more evident to me everyday that I can not have any more children.  It's a very sad sad thought.

I was cuddling Sasha last night and felt so close to her and immediately the thought entered in my mind...."I can't wait to have another baby!"

....oh.
wait a minute.
I can't :(

I actually forgot for those moments as I cuddled with her.....I can't believe it.  I can't believe it.  I can't believe it.  It can't be real.  And now I feel down again.  Everything in my being tells me a baby is to be here.  Here, in my arms laying close to me next to Sasha and Kaneeka.

I thought about how Westley has already won the prize though.  He's in the best place he could be....with His Maker