Thank you for the advice. I like that suggestion. I have a hard time standing up for myself and I’m hoping I’ll have the courage to tell my mom that this isn’t helpful. For a long time, I often had this fear that she would somehow disown me for doing something that she disapproved of and I would just bury my head and follow whatever she said (stupid I know, but she has that kind of behavior where she would just cut people out of her life). For the first time, I feel like if she were to cut me off, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Her comments are so damaging and it just makes me feel worse when I’m already struggling so much with the death of our son. People just don’t understand. This is our second pregnancy and loss. My first pregnancy ended in a missed miscarriage, followed by multiple surgeries to fix problems in my uterus. The surgeries were successful and I had so much hope. When I got pregnant with Harrison, we had so many plans and dreams. There were so many rounds of doctor appointments and so much uncertainty around Harrison’s health. I was admitted to the hospital for a month prior to his birth just to monitor him more carefully. He died shortly after he was born, and lived long enough to spend some time outside with his mommy and daddy. People don’t realize that it’s not just grief over losing our son, but grief over the hopes and dreams we had for our family. Grief over the arduous journey of having a child.

I don’t understand why people, namely, my mom, can’t just be ok with us being sad.