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Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

avant-gardeSenior Contributor20 Oct 2025, 7:43 pm AEDT

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

I learned this morning that October is known to some as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

Loss hits us all differently, child, grandchild, niece, nephew, any kind of relation really. But the loss of the child you never got to know, who never got to live and that you still love so dearly? It's harder than words can describe.

For a child we have a funeral, but for miscarriage, abortion, even those who grieve the child they can't have but so badly wanted, how do we remember them?

I've lost a number of children, I've named every one of them... I still love and grieve every one of them. I have a tangible set of keyrings with each child having a different saying on theirs and their name engraved. I took those keyrings combined with their names and meanings and created a memorial album.

Earlier this year I was brave and I asked a very dear friend of mine to knit me a rainbow baby blanket to help me remember and grieve them.

Whether you've lost a child or not, whether it's recent or a long time ago, you are not alone and you are allowed to grieve for them and what they represented to you.

So I wanted to make space for those feelings, wherever you fit in the picture, a place to remember them.

Their wings were ready but our hearts were not

8 replies

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In response to: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

AuntGlowModerator20 Oct 2025, 7:50 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

Thank you so much for this beautiful and earnest invitation to connect and grieve over such an unimaginable loss. My heart is with you @avant-garde, and whilst I don't know what this experience feels like, I get the sense that many others here do.

We appreciate you immensely for starting this conversation. 💛

In response to: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

BowSenior Contributor20 Oct 2025, 8:42 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

I’ve experienced this loss

its something that I feel very confused about. Every January… and the February and the months leading up to suck pretty much.

thought I’d share this that I wrote previously.

Content/trigger warning

Your existence was but short

You came about in such a horrendous way

And I wasn’t sure how I felt about you

Yet there you were growing inside me.

What was the right way to feel?

What was the correct way to handle the situation?

I had so many different thoughts

So many conflicting notions going round in my head.

If I kept you I would have to tell of the way in which you were conceived

I would have to admit to my mistake that dark eventful night.

But I could not comprehend the other option.

Would you be a constant reminder of that night? Whenever I look into your eyes would I see him? Would I be flung back to that time and place?

Would the love that I have for you be the same? You would of still been a part of me, a precious life to love none the less.

But Your precious life was not meant to be.

Your life will always be a long list of what ifs.

Questions that I will never know the answer to.

Your existence was but short You came about in such a horrendous way And I wasn’t sure how I felt about you Yet there you were growing inside me. What was the right way to feel? What was the correct way to handle the situation? I had so many different thoughts So many conflicting notions going round in my head. If I kept you I would have to tell of the way in which you were conceived I would have to admit to my mistake that dark eventful night. But I could not comprehend the other option. Would you be a constant reminder of that night? Whenever I look into your eyes would I see him? Would I be flung back to that time and place? Would the love that I have for you be the same? You would of still been a part of me, a precious life to love none the less. But Your precious life was not meant to be. Your life will always be a long list of what ifs. Questions that I will never know the answer to.

In response to: Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

avant-gardeSenior Contributor20 Oct 2025, 8:46 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

Sitting with you @Bow

It's a loss that is not easy to carry 💜

In response to: Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

ArraDreamingSenior Contributor20 Oct 2025, 8:55 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

💜

In response to: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

MissGremlinSenior Contributor20 Oct 2025, 9:14 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

@avant-garde firstly I'm sending you huge hugs beautiful and know that you are not alone and I'm here for you ❤️.

I love how you remember them with the keyrings and sayings and have a memorial album for them. The rainbow blanket that your friend made sounds very special ❤️.

I've had a few miscarriages myself including a set of twins and I still think about what life could have been like if things were different and they were all still here.

Thankyou for creating this space for us to share and remember them ❤️

In response to: Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

AlwaysMyselfSenior Contributor20 Oct 2025, 11:12 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

Sending care and validating your feelings of grief @avant-garde @Bow @MissGremlin and any others who have experienced this loss. My heart goes out to you.

In response to: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

TurmoilContributor21 Oct 2025, 4:57 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

Thanks for your sharing here…. There’s so little places to be able to allow those grievances to air. I feel mine all bottled up… like fermenting homemade ginger beer… ready to rupture and spray sticky stuff all over the walls. But I still hold it in.

Trigger warning…..

sensitive content.

(not sure if it is or not)

it all went so fast… 2 miscarriages… a clean out, then at 20 week scan, a bad prognosis… a devision to make… keep or terminate.

How could I make that decision, so many opinionated views… it’s cruel, it’s timely, it’s necessary, it’s wasteful to resources to continue… but could I continue with myself if I did?

so, she came full term, not healthy, and not happy… some terrible questions had to be asked and permanent damage for me to carry physically and emotionally.

3 days which felt (and was) a lifetime (for her). Precious girl… what wrong had you ever done, what life had you been robbed from?

but never mind… I’m smart, I can train my brain to think good things… “aren’t you happy you can have more”, “isn’t it good you don’t have to raise a disabled child”?

all truths but do cold, and unfeeling.

that’s how we survive… lean into the cold, feel the void. Suffer in silence.

pain has no feeling now, because pain is just a thought… what had feeling is the unfairness, the unspoken words, the missed opportunities, the unanswered questions… but what does it matter. There is no tomorrow with her. There is no tomorrow free of suffering.

we all suffer, some more than others, it’s relative. And there’s no deeper love than a parent for a child… or so they say!

In response to: Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

avant-gardeSenior Contributor21 Oct 2025, 5:09 pm AEDT

Re: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (TW)

Oh @Turmoil, that is so much to deal with, so much to hold in and so much to navigate.

Thank you for sharing, I know it's not easy.

My 5th keyrings quote is "An angel opened the book of life, wrote down my baby's birth. As she closed the book she whispered 'too beautiful for earth'"

I'm not here to give you platitudes, but I can sit with you, I can cry with you and I can grieve with you.

You are not alone.

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