In January 2009 I lost my first pregnancy at 9 weeks and 3 days. Though I knew miscarriage happened, I did not know it could happen to me. I was devastated and wanted to hide from the world, but I also needed support. I reached out online to people who could understand what I was going through, and found a message board for Pregnancy Loss on The Bump. Eventually I moved to the board called Trying to Conceive After a Loss, and from there to Success After a Loss (now called Pregnant After a Loss, a change that my “class” lobbied the Bump for to reflect our knowledge that pregnancy does not always equal success). The group that I bonded with over all those months eventually moved to Parenting After a Loss, a board that existed mainly because we all wanted to stay in touch. From there we migrated off The Bump to a private Facebook group.

It’s hard to convey the importance of this group over the years… everyone wasn’t always super active on the boards at all times, but we stayed connected because we had shared so much. We were able to be honest about our grief, to relate to the emotional roller coasters while we tried again, to lay bare our anxieties when we got pregnant again, to rejoice with each other when one of us finally had a healthy baby to hold and love. And sadly, along the way, we mourned more losses, miscarriages and stillbirths, struggles with infertility.

One of the women that I knew pretty much from the beginning of my journey had a daughter close to Miles’s age and recently was happily expecting her second child, a son. Last Monday her baby boy was born, but last night he passed away. Since this is a public blog I don’t want to give out details, but since I have a voice, I just want to tell the world that Timmy lived, and was dearly loved. So many people were thinking of him and praying for him every day that he lived, and so many will remember him forever.

I can’t even express how touched I have been by the outpouring of support and love from our group to this family. What an amazing group of people.