BabyLoss: Pregnant Before and After Pictures

I saw this link on my facebook feed. (*warning to the baby loss- photos of pregnancy and newborns*)

http://beingmommydaily.com/pregnant-before-and-after-pictures-heartwarming

if you haven’t clicked, let me tell you: it’s a series of side by side photos with a woman very pregnant next to herself in the same clothes, standing the same way, holding her newborn at tummy level.

This was a link I would have clicked on easily in the before. My job as a midwife and my natural draw towards pregnancy and newborn photos would have made the link a good match for me.

Now, in the after, my facebook feed is pretty empty of kids, babies and bellies, thanks to my weeding out and unfollowing of friends who have such things. But I am also in the OB community and so some career related posts sometimes pop up.

I clicked on it.

I know what you’re thinking- I’m sure some of you babylost have your own idea. Perhaps I was a glutton for punishment. Like how even though I’ve blocked babies from my feed, I every now and then look at certain people’s pages. I make myself sad by doing it and perhaps that’s why I do it- I want to feel sad, on my own time, when I click, not when I’m surprised in my feed. Perhaps it’s training, recognizing that bellies and babies are a reality (an everyday reality in my working world), and forcing myself to look at these kinds of photos will help desensitize me so I can react in real life like a real human instead of the grief monster I have become.

But that’s not why I clicked this link.

I clicked because I honestly thought I would see some mothers empty handed.

Isn’t that crazy? Have I become too entangled in the babyloss world that my reality is blurred? Of course pictures of mothers with empty arms would not be called “heartwarming!” Maybe my facebook feed is so saturated with StillStanding Magazine and Down Syndrome Bereavement Support Group posts that I forget that there is anything else? Maybe I’ve become so open about my loss and have found so many of you out there to talk easily of our dead babies, that I expect the world to do the same?

I’m not sure why I thought they’d have empty-armed mothers there, but I think they should.

Perhaps this is a challenge. Could we come up with some of our own photos? Can you find a photo of yourself pregnant and restage it now? You can have empty arms or holding a photo of your child or a keepsake that reminds you of him/her.

Think about it.

If you do it, post it on your own blog and link it in the comments. If you don’t have your own blog but want to share, comment and I’ll email you for the photos to post on my blog.

What do think?

I didn’t have many photos of myself big and pregnant.  It’s one of my bigger regrets.  At the time I thought I wouldn’t want to be reminded later on, but now I cherish every pregnancy photo I have.  Here I am November 2013 and present day.

Babyloss: Pregnant Before and After