Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

I don't have a story to tell. No story that is my story. I could tell you about holding my friends' hands, shedding tears together, alternating between praying and swearing at anyone who mentions God. But those aren't my stories.

What I can tell you is that parents in particular are terrible at relating to the parents of lost children, Because we always forget that first word... parent.

Not every woman who experiences a miscarriage considers herself a mother. But most have, and once you've become a mother there's no going back. You don't stop being a mother because you've lost a child.

I don't believe that life starts at conception, but I do believe that emotions have value. That experience has value. If it happened to you, if the switch in your soul switched, and you became a parent, you never stop. You always will be.

Janet of Tell Another Mom published a letter I wrote several months ago. I would like to share it with all of you today.

To An Invisible Mom

Mothers are good at finding each other. It doesn't matter how long ago it happened, the magical moment when something about us fundamentally changed, but we all know it. The moment that we began thinking of ourselves as mothers. And for almost all of us, there is joy and pride in that title. We see other moms at the playground or in the grocery store, and if we can we go a little out of our way to show ourselves. Look over here! I see you, and we're members of the same club! Look at my badge! Look at my scars! Let me see yours!

We speak the same language. It was an unassisted VBAC! Did you get EI for his SPD?

We watch the same television.  Isn't Caillou the worst? I always dancey dance. 

We sing the same songs. Twinkle twinkle little star...

But what about the women afraid to raise their hands? Afraid to pin the motherhood badge to their chests and wear it with pride?

There are reasons to be afraid. Not for me, with my children at my side. But for you, my friend, the mother who lost her child before birth.

Mothers seem to spend a lot of time knocking each other down these days. But no matter what choices I make, you always support me. No matter how much I complain about the mundane frustrations of parenthood, you let me me know what a great job you think I'm doing. No matter how many thousands of pictures of my kids I put on facebook, you're always there, hitting "like" a thousand more times.

Every Mother's Day your heart breaks. Every Christmas, every anticipated birthday. You count the days and years. You believe in your heart that someday, in heaven, a child with your features will greet you with love, with the weight of the missed hugs and kisses of a lifetime.

You became a mother before your child was born. You knew that as you stepped on the scale, compared nausea stories, decorated a nursery. You had plans. You were ready to open your life for the child you hadn't met. Your heart was as open as the sky.

You are still a mother. You still speak that language you studied so carefully, even if you're afraid to join in conversation.

And I know why you can't. Sometimes you feel like a shadow, or a phantom, and you're afraid of the looks on other mother's faces if you spoke your story. Afraid of their fear. It's easier to be invisible.

And all of this, this is more proof that you are a mother. A woman who cares so deeply for the feelings and well being of another person that it pains you. You look at children with love, as parents do. You take pride in your experiences of motherhood. You deserve your joy, you deserve your happiness.

Whether or not you hold your own baby in your arms, squirming with life and constant need, you are still a mother. With the weight of your loss, you are not diminished. You are not other. You are one of us- one of the club.

My heart breaks for you, the mother who has experienced the worst of all motherhood has to offer. And it breaks for you for having missed the most joyful. You have lost your child, as fully and truly as the parent of any lost child. And so many people neglect you, ignore your experience. Tell you that you aren't a "real" mom.

But you are. I know it. And more importantly, you do. You know you became a mother once, and there is no going back. No un-becoming. No erasing the changes in your heart and soul.

You're doing a good job, mama. Every day you do more than the rest of us can comprehend- you keep going. You keep loving. You keep giving.

You are a good mom.

Even when you're the only one who knows it.

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If you're enjoyed reading my blog, please consider coming back tomorrow to vote for me in the Blogger Idol competition! Voting opens tomorrow at noon.

Learning the Ropes

Last week, the Blogger Idol judges joked that our next assignment would be erotica. Of course they were lying, but we didn't know that. It made me want to go back and revisit a guest post I did over the summer, unfortunately, it seems the link is broken! So here it is again.


This was originally published on The Toy Lady Writes A warning to parents, aunts, uncles, etc... this is undoubtedly TMI. Proceed at your own risk.

And if you Blogger Idol judges are reading, maybe next time you'll think twice about asking us contestants to write about sex!

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Shhhh...

There was no doubt he'd been in a sex shop before. There's something about being a twenty something man in the United States which implies going into sleazy porn shops and sad, alcohol free strip clubs is a right of passage.

We'd been dating for a long time, or what passes for a long time when you're just out of your teens, and we were feeling experimental.

"Want to go get a new toy?" I asked, my eyebrows wiggling. He grinned back. "Oh yeah!"

But it wasn't to the dimly lit Rod's Basement I took him, it was our friendly neighborhood feminist sex shop.

He'd walked by dozens of times, and never realized what was inside. the friendly, blue and white picture of a comfortably fluffy bed didn't register. "I thought this was like a Linen's N' Things," he muttered as we walked under the "Early 2 Bed" sign.

The inside was clean, spacious. Along the wall ran a shelf covered in the merchandise- available to pick up and test out before you buy.

The walls were covered with slogans, with posters for local feminist pornos and staff recommendations for anal beads and nipple clamps. There wasn't a single picture of a naked woman, bending down and wearing outrageously long fake nails. There were hardly any pictures at all. After all, feminists sex shops are about sex- not about using exploitative images to turn on repressed men.

He circled a display of packies, he eyes popping out of their sockets. A cheerful woman in a short, spiky haircut and Rivers Cuomo glasses walked up. "Can I help you find something?"

I could almost hear the saliva evaporate from his mouth. I stepped in.

"Yes, we're looking for some new toys."

"Excellent!" she beamed. "What kind of stimulation are you looking for? Clitoral? G-spot? ...p-spot?" She gave him a conspiratorial grin, and he blanched.

"I think clitoral, to start." M gave me the kind of look that kills.

"What?" I asked, "Do you want us to get something aimed for a prostate?"

The friendly sex shop worker chuckled, and pointed to the corner nearest the door. "Over here, we have a wide variety of bullets and accessories."

"Perfect."

He stared at the vibrating eggs and gelatinous cock rings, and shook his head.

"I have no idea what any of this is."

Well, tonight's going to be fun, I thought. "I'll pick something out. Why don't you go sit in that chair? It looks comfortable."

Gratefully, he speed walked to an oversized armchair next to a coffee tabled loaded with books, and avoided eye contact with everyone.

The store clerk led me around the store, and we talked about the strap-on harnesses, about which ones were intended to attach to the thigh- obviously designed by women- and which weren't, but could be useful with a packie. She showed me their latest selection of glass dongs, the outrageously expensive hand crafted silicone vibrators that recharged batteries by sitting on their sleek, contemporary stands.

I picked out a vibrating silicone ring and a dildo shaped like a seal, and joined M.

"Ready?" I asked him. He didn't respond. He stared at the pages of the book in front of him. A beautifully illustrated how-to guide, filled with detailed pen and ink drawings, titled, "The Art of Fisting." One broad, clean page displayed two women, one with her hand inside the other up to the wrist. The other depicted two men, in a similar pose. All four characters looked happy, the women's bodies realistically rounded, one of the men without hair and wearing glasses.

I patted him on the shoulder and dragged him up to the register. He glanced over his shoulder at the titles still laying open on the table, "The Smart Girl's Guide to Porn," and "The Multi-Orgasmic Man." The woman behind the counter beamed.

"Ah, that's a wonderful book, isn't it? Really fantastic stuff, if you're willing to take the time to learn." He goggled at her.

As we left the store, he leaned and whispered in my ear.

"I've never been in a sex shop like that..."

"No kidding," I snarked at him.

"Did you see there was a porn selection?"

"Oh yeah, ever seen 'Bend Over Boyfriend?'" He gaped at me.

"Anyway, when you feel like picking up a flogger and some silk rope, let me know."

Less that two weeks later, he was dragging me into the store again, to enroll in the frequent buyer's program. It was all I could do to keep him from setting up a registry when we got married.

He never went into Igor's Dungeon again.