I held my breath

When I woke up this morning, I knew it was going to be a heavy day as it’s the first day of Pregnancy + Infant Loss Awareness Month, but I didn’t except to see this heartbreaking image from @chrissyteigen about the devastating loss of her son, Jack.

I held my breath.

I stopped breathing because I knew that photo and that pose oh too well.

Her face. I can see it.

That same cry. That same leaning down in shock and the holding of hands to comfort.

This photo hit me harder than I could possibly imagine because I see myself and I see so many other women in her pose and in her tears.

She shared in her post that they are in ‘shock and the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before.’ I held my breath again because I know that pain.

That pain stays with you as a woman. It sits in the pit of your stomach. It finds a home to wedge its claws into you. This pain never goes away, we just learn to live with it and adapt. The pain turns into waves. Sometimes you don’t feel it and other times, like today, you feel it overwhelm you, stab you and numb you. I know that this pain will forever change her and her family.

What did I do when I felt this

When I held my breath

I walked.

I took my heart, my soul and my body that remembers the grief, the sadness and the pain of holding your lifeless baby’s body in your arms for a walk along the ocean to heal because I know I had to move in order to take a breath and a breath for all of us who felt this pose.

Chrissy is extremely brave to share her story as she is in the public eye and thus unintentionally in her mourning creating awareness that we need to have conversations to education a world on how to hold space for this, a world that feels uncomfortable with death and especially death of a baby.

Jenn 💌

#stillbirth #pregnancyloss #internationalpregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth