Coral: Right Where I Am 2014: 4 months 28 days

I feel that I’m being forced to live. Everything surrounding me keeps on moving like nothing happened. We have returned to work, we socialise with friends and follow our normal routine prior the baby. We continue enjoying our company like nobody is missing. I can no longer describe my feelings exactly, but feeling NUMB gets close to it.

Our baby was born on February 26 this year. She never made it home, passing quickly after birth. I never got to hold her. The only memory that I have of her, alive, is hearing her crying after giving birth to her. I got to kiss her hello and goodbye at the same time without knowing. She was perfect. What makes more difficult to understand the reasons of her passing. The memories of the nurse coming to the room with teary eyes prompting my husband and I to go down to the NICU, after only 30 minutes of bringing my little girl into the world, haunts me everyday. The only pictures that we carry are of a baby that was not alive. The only time spent with our daughter was the time when her heart stopped beating. Unfortunately those memories replace the only good memory that I have of her, alive.

I can only think about not having a baby to hold, a reason to wake up everyday. I feel lost and lonely. Although my husband is supportive I still feel empty. Nobody talks about her… Why is so difficult to talk about my baby? It’s hard to be surrounded by people that put on an act to avoid conversations. It's tough to see how others decide to walk the other way due to not knowing what to say. It is harsh to be THAT girl, the one who lost a baby. Coping with grief is hard enough without worrying about these kind of things. But somehow those are things that I keep on experiencing and the things that I have to deal with, besides my grief. I only wish people can understand how to be gentle and ignoring the fact that my baby died is not being gentle.

4 months and 28 days after my loss feels like the very first day. The NUMBNESS of not feeling but yet, living with a roller coaster of emotions only makes me think that IT DOESN’T GET BETTER. Some days I’m sad, some days I’m mad. Every end of the month I can’t even stand myself. Anger… let’s not talk about it. Confusion is something that I learned to live with. Pretending to be happy gets easier but on the inside I now I’m lying to myself. I have mastered the answer to everyone’s favourite question; by faking a smile while responding “I’m ok”. The truth is that most of the time I don’t even know how I’m feeling. I just know that something is missing.

I feel stuck in time, while life just happens around me. I struggle to live. 4 months and 28 days of survival on a world that don’t make sense anymore.