The Secret Life

Dear Stevie,
The first couple months of being pregnant with you were the best. Aside from puking at the mere smell of chicken, or eggs, or actually, pretty much everything, and the constant state of exhaustion, and the heartburn (which was only made worse by the fact that I craved hot sauce and would eat entire bottles in one sitting--totally serious), it was awesome. My favorite part about those first 12 weeks or so, was that you were a secret to most of the world. I loved walking around Target, or talking to co-workers in the lunchroom, aware that I had a little baby inside of me, and knowing they didn't know. How exciting! How thrilling! Of course, I wanted to spill the beans so badly sometimes, just blurt out to the cashier ringing up the popsicles I was buying in the middle of winter, "I'm buying those because I'm PREGNANT!" But I also really enjoyed the days when you were a secret. My precious little secret.

Now that you're gone, I'm back to carrying around a secret, only this time, it's not so much fun.

It's like I'm living a double-life sometimes. The Secret Life of a Babyloss Mom.

"She's your average just turned 25-year-old enjoying life post-college. She enjoys going to the beach with her girlfriends, walking her dogs, hitting up late-night happy hours with her husband, and her nonprofit job. Looking at her, you'd never know the secret life she lives: the life of a babyloss mother."

Monday night I went to the big Lady Gaga concert in town with a couple of my college roomies. We put together come pretty amazing Gaga-inspired outfits (see below), and had a really fun time at the show (which was very, very weird, but very, very awesome).

I had to include this one because she is wearing basically a big mop, and it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my entire life.

While we were walking around downtown St. Paul, before the concert began, I kid you not, like 50 people wanted to take pictures with us and our awesome costumes. We assumed everyone was going to be dressed up in crazy outfits, but it turned out most of the girls just used the concert as an excuse to dress like, well, skanks (ha), so we were one of the few groups that actually looked Gaga-esque. While we were laughing and taking pictures with strangers, I kept thinking, "these people would never in a million years guess what I've been through the last 3 and a half months."

They see a smiling, giggling girl, who I'm sure they assume is in high school or maybe college, dressed up in a crazy outfit, out having a good time with her friends. They have absolutely no clue that behind the smile, there's a grieving mother. That underneath the silly clothes, there's a broken heart and a wounded spirit.

Sometimes I feel out of place. I'm young, and I'm mainly surrounded by other young 20-somethings. But I feel like I've aged so much in the last nine months or so, since you came into my life and then left it so suddenly. While other people my age are thinking about meeting boys and where the coolest party's at, I'm trying to figure out what to do with my daughter's ashes that are still just sitting on a bookshelf in the living room. The experience of losing a child kind of forces you to grow up, I think.

It's like there are two separate and distinct parts of me: the "normal, happy, goes out and has fun' me, and the 'forever changed, often sad, babyloss mom" me. I guess I need to figure out how to combine the two into one somehow. I'm working on it.

Sorry this was a kind of jumbled and rambling post, Baby. I miss you so much, little girl.


Love,
Mom