8th Birthday Without You, How Have I Been?

My Pain Now in 2025 Compared to 2017, living with the loss of my still born baby

Grief doesn’t end. It evolves. It folds itself into the corners of your life, reshaping itself over the years into something quieter but just as present. In 2017, when I lost my unborn baby, I didn’t have the language or the strength to understand what had happened.

All I knew was that something beautiful and hoped for had vanished, leaving behind a silence that screamed in my body and my soul.

Now, in 2025, eight years later, I sit with that pain in a different way. It no longer knocks the breath out of my lungs. It no longer wakes me in the middle of the night with raw sobs. But it lives with me, in my thoughts, in my rituals, in the quiet spaces of my life. It is softer now, but no less real. And in some ways, it is more profound.

In 2017, I felt broken. Losing a child you’ve never held is a disorienting kind of sorrow. There’s no funeral with mourners in black (I held a funeral but it feels like I wasn’t present, like it was an out of body exper no photos to mark a life, no memories to hold onto. But the grief is real. It’s heavy and invisible, isolating and often minimized.

I remember the sterile feel of the doctor’s office, the too-quiet silence after the scan, the way time suddenly felt like it was folding in on itself. I remember the weight of unspoken dreams, of the names I had whispered in the dark, the future I had imagined in bursts of joy and fear. I remember clutching my belly, begging for something to be different, for some miracle to turn back time.

That year was marked by an unbearable aching. Every birth announcement felt like a sharp sting. Every baby shower I was invited to was a reminder of what I had lost. And it wasn’t just the child I grieved so badly for, it was the version of myself that had allowed hope to bloom so freely.

I felt angry. At my body, for betraying me. At the universe, for taking something I had barely begun to love. At the silence of those who didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing. At the casual comments from people who meant well but left bruises behind: “You can always try again,” “At least it was early,” “Everything happens for a reason.”

There was no space in 2017 for that kind of logic. My world had tilted, and I didn’t know if it would ever right itself again.

What nobody tells you is that grief doesn’t follow a straight line. There’s no timeline for healing, no magic milestone where you suddenly feel whole again. In the years between 2017 and now, I learned to coexist with my grief.

It came with me to family gatherings and holidays. It crept into conversations when I least expected it. It made me more sensitive to other people’s losses, more aware of the invisible stories people carry.

I learned to talk about it slowly. At first, just with close friends. Then in writing. And eventually, I met others, women and families, who had experienced similar losses. There was power in those similar yet comfortable silences, those knowing glances, those stories bravely told.

I began to honor my baby in small, private ways. A candle lit every year on the due date. A charm on a bracelet I never take off (I wore it for a long time but I recently kept it away). A name that lives in my heart, even if it was never spoken aloud.

And in those rituals, I started to feel a sense of connection, maybe?, not just to my child, but to myself. The woman I was becoming. The mother I was, even if the world didn’t recognize it.

Now in 2025, the pain is different. It’s not gone. It never will be. But it has softened. It is part of me now, not necessarily a wound, but a scar. Not a scream, but a whisper.

I think of my baby often. Not always in sorrow. Sometimes just in wonder. Who would they have been? What would they have loved? What might they have taught me?

I still grieve, but not with the same rawness. Now, it is a quiet ache on days like Mother’s Day, or when I see a child the same age mine would have been. It’s a pause in my breath, a sudden mist in my eyes, a heart tug when I least expect it.

But there’s also something else now: a deep, enduring love. A love that transcends time and space. A love that shaped me, broke me, and rebuilt me into someone more compassionate, more settled, more open.

I carry that love into everything I do. Into how I support others. Into how I approach the future. Into how I hold space for joy and sorrow to exist side by side.

The greatest lesson grief has taught me is that it is not linear, and it is not a weakness. It is a reflection of love. And love, even in loss, is never wasted.

I have learned that it’s okay to keep remembering. That healing doesn’t mean forgetting. That you can move forward without moving on. That you can build a life full of beauty while still honoring the parts that are broken.

I have slowly learned that pain doesn’t need to be fixed, it needs to be felt, witnessed, and held with tenderness. That grief is not something to “get over” but something to walk with.

I have learned how important it is to speak openly, even when it’s hard. Because silence breeds shame, and no one should feel alone in their sorrow. Every time I have shared my story, someone has whispered back: “Me too.”

And I have learned to trust myself again. To believe in my strength. To allow space for both grief and growth, for tears and laughter, for remembrance and renewal.

If you are in the early days of loss, I want you to know this, your grief is valid. Your love is real. Your pain matters.

You don’t have to rush to heal. You don’t have to justify your sorrow. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay.

Take your time. Speak your baby’s name if you have one. Create your own rituals. Let the grief move through you in waves. Know that you are not alone.

One day, you will look back and see how far you have come. Not because the pain disappeared, but because you carried it with grace. Because you allowed your heart to keep beating, even with a piece of it missing.

Eight years have passed, and I am still learning how to live with the space my baby left behind. But in that space, I have also found strength, clarity, and an unmovable sense of love.

In 2017, I survived.
In 2025, I live, with all of it.
And in every version of myself, I remain a mother.

To the child I never got to hold, I hold you now, in every word I write, in every breath I take, in every beat of this healing heart.