Support

A few weeks ago, the Saturday before Thanksgiving to be exact, I attended my very first support group. A group of women from around the Rochester area meet twice a month and "support" each other. Talk about life, experiences with the loss of their children, fears, joys, etc. I thought I might give it a try with Thanksgiving coming up and my anxieties about how I was going to handle my first holiday without 3 of my children here with me. Those who know me know that this is WAY out of my comfort zone. Who goes to meet a bunch of women they don't know to talk about the most personal, vulnerable things that could ever happen in their life....the loss of their child/ren??? Well, these women do. And, apparently, I do. It was ok. I felt pretty awkward because I just don't know that something like that is what God would use to help me. I have a fantastic group of close friends who are more like family to me. They have walked through every step of this with me, finding out I was pregnant. Then finding out there were 5 living babies inside of me, then 4, then 3. They were there when my water broke at 14 weeks with Nathan. They were there when we found out we were having 1 girl, 1 boy, and Nathan was still a mystery. They were there when I had to be on restrictions and couldn't do much at all. They were there when I went into labor, and when I gave birth to the babies, and when I had to say goodbye. They are there when I need to talk, or cry, or just be. I thought that maybe going to talk to women who had been through something similar to what I have that I wouldn't feel "wrong" for wanting to make them apart of our family even though they were not here on this earth with us anymore, or weird that I was the friend with dead children. I was wrong. I didn't need them to make me feel like my children were still here with me. I didn't need that support group to feel like I wasn't the friend that stuck out like a sore thumb when hanging out or talking about our children. The friends that I have, the friends that have been there supporting me from the beginning, they are the ones who remember my children with me, talk about them by name, and help me to still feel "normal". I may still attend some of the meetings just to connect with other women in this area, and share my story, and hope to help others who may feel like they have no one know that there is at least one person out there who would like to help them remember their child/ren they've lost, at least one person who will listen to as many stories as they want to tell about the child/ren that are no longer on this earth to create new stories.