Confessions Of A Rainbow Baby

Confessions of a rainbow baby

A rainbow baby is a term used for a baby born after a miscarriage, stillborn or neonatal death. It’s used because it represents the beauty that can become of such a horrific storm. People don’t often understand that it’s not all beautiful though. They see your happy posts on social media and think “a happy ending” but in reality it doesn’t quite work that way. Much like an actual rainbow the clouds from the storm remain lingering despite the many breath-taking colours shining through them in their miraculous display.

Being pregnant with a rainbow means checking the toilet paper for blood EVERY time you go to the bathroom. It means taking 50 pregnancy tests to make sure the line is getting darker. It means going to extremes to do ANYTHING to stay pregnant. Including medication, blood work, injections.. whatever your doctor thinks.

It means holding your breath when they check for a heartbeat. It means frantically purchasing a home doppler to relieve your anxiety between appointments because the relief that comes from an appointment is temporary, 24 hours at best. It means sitting in a waiting room filled with women who have their innocence still in tact and envying them.. even though you’re pregnant too, you know you’ll never feel the pure bliss they do.

Your mind is constantly wandering to the worst.. will this baby live? Do I dare buy baby clothes? It’s picking out a few cute things online and leaving them in the cart without cashing out because if you dare to get excited and actually buy it, it becomes another reminder. It’s trying to take everyone’s advice and “stay positive” but knowing positivity doesn’t change a damn thing. You cannot will a baby to live. If you could the one you lost would still be alive. It’s the struggle of bonding with the baby when they kick and immediately wondering if it’ll be the last one you’ll feel. It’s seeing their beautiful little face on an ultrasound and wondering if you’ll actually be granted the ability of holding them alive and breathing.

It’s trying to overcome the fear as you approach the point of your loss..It’s progressing past the point of your loss and thinking oh God what if the baby dies now.. I can’t handle a loss THIS far.. but then I didn’t want to handle the last loss either.. it’s hitting viability and think there’s a chance now.. but then maybe there isn’t.. it’s knowing there is no safe zone until the baby is here.

Then the day comes when your long awaited rainbow is born. You hold your breath, you don’t notice a single thing, you’re zoned into the sound.. waiting for it, that glorious scream.. ahhh there it is. The moment you’ve been waiting for.. relief washes over you. And for a moment you think finally.. this is it. Or is it?

It doesn’t end there, no this is when the real mind fuck begins. This is when the constant back and forth happens. This is when you start staring at your baby, so incredibly thankful for this new human life that was long awaited and secretly breaking inside. You begin the constant battle of feeling happy and heartbroken all at the same time.

It’s feeling guilty for that happiness and feeling guilty for still grieving the baby that’s gone. The sense of betrayal to your angel for “moving on” and the sense of betrayal to your rainbow for continuing to long for the baby that could have, should have been. It’s feeling damned either way.

I find myself staring at my son, relishing in his existence and strangely being thankful for my daughter’s death because had she survived he simply wouldn’t be here. It is enough to tear a mother in half having those feelings. Trying to navigate life with a rainbow is trying.. exhausting. I still wonder daily if I’ll have to give him back. Will he catch a virus and never recover? Will something happen to my other children? The anxiety never ends.

While life continues to march forward.. I’m in total and complete awe of the spectacular display my rainbow brings to me and my family; those clouds from the storm linger, and honestly I don’t know how long they’ll last. So I continue to carry on, looking up, lost in the beauty of the colors all while still stepping in the mud puddles of the storm.

Written by L.L.