It is Miscarriage and Infant Loss Awareness Month

My Mother Love
©10-5-18 Hannah McLean

it’s a lonely grief
to lose a child 

who has never breathed the air

around me

who has never occupied the space 

outside me

who has never entered into any heart

besides my own

because my Mother Love

is different than another love

it begins the moment

that I know my child exists

as though the heart had already

prepared a place

for them to occupy

one that will now remain 
unfilled

because that space is meant

to contain a lifetime

of moments shared

but will forever echo

with the emptiness 
of what never was

the first miscarriage
was accompanied by eager expectation
anticipated fulfillment of prayer and promise
6 days of knowing, praising, delighting
but all he had was 6 weeks inside me
before I felt the pain of my womb as it snuffed out his tiny life
and of my empty arms

the second miscarriage
was far more recent and far more messy
at 12 weeks they looked inside
my growing center
and found that the heart was no longer beating
for nearly 2 weeks I walked around
a fragile tomb
waiting for my baby to emerge
an excruciating wait
ending in a pool of blood
that nearly drained me of my own life
I gently washed that tiny child
and buried him under
my freshly planted linden tree
and looked down once more into my empty arms

it's a lonely grief
because no one got to love
those babies
like I did
and the expectation is
that the grief be as small
as the life that was lost
but that is not
the measure of my Mother Love