My heart really goes out to you. I know the feeling all my friend got up the duff about the same time... Me included. I lost mine at 7 weeks. Now Im a god aunt to 3. I know it can be so sad, sometimes even my friends go quiet around me for fear of upsetting me but you have to beautiful children and I am sure you are a wonderful mother. If it makes you feel better I chuck temper tantrums from time to time.

The movement happens - and it's happening - in small waves and tiny steps and inhales and exhales.You know how I feel about this...xoxoLove you.

I read once that knowing that others have been through worse doesn't necessarily make you feel better when you are in pain. (OH, how I know that.)

Loss like this gets better in tiny bits and pieces. Sometimes you can't see any progress until you stop and look back at where you came from. It's also kind of hard knowing that happens. I struggled a lot with that, I still do.

AND? I have given birth to three healthy boys and have two wonderful ones left. All were "Normal" deliveries.

I lived in TERROR of having to have a C-Section because I know deep down THAT I AM NOT NEARLY BRAVE ENOUGH TO GO THROUGH IT. It terrifies me.

I admire the hell out of you.

I have only vague memories of giving birth to my older daughter. I too was strapped down, surrounded by doctors and nurses and sterile blue drapes and an overflowing team of neonatologists waiting to whisk my newborn away to another hospital. I so wanted a different experience with my second. I wanted to feel all the strength and power and primal glow of birthing her myself, but it was the surgical team again. I guess I just wanted to say that I feel for you, and I understand, and I hope for both of us that we can recognize in ourselves the women who were strong enough to cope with trauma in what should always be a deliriously happy situation.

What a post! Your writing hits me in the head like a 2x4 and I must say, I'm a better mom because of it. Many continued thanks for sharing your journey with me. My love and hugs to you all.

Oh Kate. While I wish that your mind would let you rest, I can understand how it doesn't. As we get older and go through things which permanently scar us, we face reminders of those scars off and on throughout our day/week/month/year. Accepting them is impossibly hard sometimes. There are all kinds of sorrows out there, accompanied by desires and wishes for what might have been different. Just know that the bulk of the population wanders around living with those things right along with you. I mean that as a "you're not so alone in your struggling as you fear you are". Hugs to you.

You have living, happy children? That sounds good to me. After five years of trying, I have none. No one "does it" under her own power whether it is getting pregnant, giving birth, or any part of it. It's just a roll of the dice.

Kate - A heartfelt post, indeed. You always write with incredible clarity, my friend. And you don't need me to remind any of us just how unexpected this journey is. of course I have a handful of friends who've had two, three babies, even, who each sleep well and eat and they all go about their lives in relative unaware of any versions of the 'other side.' This friend, one of my best, was completely horrified when I miscarried my second pregnancy, and even more awed when I shared with her just how much information I know on the subject. She's never experienced anything other than the relatively normal, save for prescribed c-sections with all three kids, and for her, that was a small emotional mountain to climb up; that was her wall.

Anyway, for me: yes, I have birthed three kids the 'natural' way (with pain relief, as I am not pain tolerant) but I never in my life expected post-partum depression to smack me upside the head. What a sobering experience that was, to be depressed in the face of my newborn child. This, this was my mountain. Apparently, we all (or most of us), have some version of one: a hill to climb, something to overcome about all this, if anything, a dream we once had, or a fierce expectation that, for some reason, didn't quite work out - at least as planned.

I will always consider your experience to be personal and raw, Kate. There is no comparison to the loss of a child. On the spectrum of all this, that is heavy and serious. And it makes perfect sense to me that you might reflect on it in this way while going through birth with your friends. It's human nature to saddle up with our freinds and peers and compare us to each other at times.

The thing is: you just have to know you did nothing wrong in all this; none of this was YOUR FAULT. You have no shortcomings, Kate. Nothing from within your spirit or heart made things happen for you as they did. It is hard to reconcile these words, to believe in them, because of course, you are the one who has carried the boys and released them and you are the one who burdens all of this deep inside. It's the mama-experience. But I can't leave this post letting you think for one fraction of a second that you are not one of the most amazing, strong birth-mothers I know of. You may be stronger than most, even. Because of what you have endured, and how you are moving the heck on forward. You're doing it so damn well.

XO from the midwest, USA -

Some of the hurt will always be there. I wish I had an answer for you. I do know that your words have offered comfort to many.

i admire your honesty in your posts, my heart goes out to you. i can't imagine what you are going through, in no way can my heartache compare to yours. i will say this, if it's any consolation, your pain was not caused by you, you did nothing wrong, life just happened. i, however, caused my pain, with intention, and knowledge and life will never be the same for me. so know that however much it hurts, you can at least live with the knowledge that it was not your actions that caused anyone pain.

i think you've captured something important here in the concept of brand - both in its meaning of a mark scarred onto us, and its consumerist meaning. we exist in a cultural discourse of birthing choices, of the right to options and empowerment...and when we confront the lie of these options in the face of trauma and grief, i think the wound and scar of the loss is compounded by the powerlessness and exclusion and failure we feel in the light of that cultural discourse where we were supposed to be able to be "bad-ass" on our own terms AND have healthy babies.

the truth is, pregnancy and birth and health really are a crapshoot...and a hundred years ago, you and i would both be dead, very likely. and i say that not to chastise you with "count your blessings," not at all. rather...if that possibility and normative permutation were something we'd gone into childbearing conscious of, i think we'd struggle less with our own failures. the discourse of empowerment is only empowering when there is actually control available...and sometimes in birth, that control is not there, no matter how some people want to believe it is.

love and hugs.

Obviously mothers who have lost a child deeply mourn. Mothers who lost the birth experience they wanted can mourn for that, too. Yes, you have your beautiful boys, but that doesn't mean their births were any more fulfilling and empowering than they really were. It's OK to feel sad for that.

Bon's put it well here. The natural birth movement has failed if it means that women feel bad if their bodies can't comply. I needed an epidural but otherwise had a completely healthy easy birth and yet I still feel like a failure. I think something's wrong with our expectations of birth. It used to kill women regularly, maybe intervention isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

each woman has her story. some much worse than others. many so different, yet so much the same. thank you for sharing yours...

I can't speak to your experience as a woman dealing with the loss of a child - but as a person whose labors are always very, very long, whose most painful contractions often did *nothing* to further dilation, I don't see any shame in accepting the assistance obstetrical medicine offers. I'm pretty sure that without pitocin and epidurals, without intervention, any one of my three labors could of have been the end of me. I understand feeling like you've been mugged by bad birth experiences, I've felt that way often - but don't be too hard on yourself. Better living through chemistry. :)

I too was strapped down with both my babies and at the time was totally fine with it. Fine until I hear of some woman's amazing drug/intervention/surgery free delivery. I've often wondered if I would have had the mettle to do it on my own. Alas, that will never be for me to find out and there is envy in me. I do however count myself blessed by two healthy babies with perfectly shaped heads and the battle scars to prove it.

Giving birth to them either naturally or via the knife of a skilled surgeon is one moment in time, and, in my opinion, does not define who a woman is or what kind of Momma she will be.

The ability to unconditionally love your child and give them a wonderful childhood does. For your children won't remember by which method they came into the world, but they *will* remember how they grew up on this earth.

And that, is the most important part of Momma-hood.

I completely agree with Nerns, I couldn't have said it better myself. Birth is but a small part (albiet a difficult one for most) of a pregnancy - carrying and protecting the babies until they are born is no easy feat either. I have always had a problem with the term "natural" birth - I think that any woman who has had a child is an amazing woman, and is by no means a failure just because the baby came into the world a different way than planned. I admire the hell out of you, and quite honestly, I am not sure I have had the strength you possess. Your posts always touch me, and the way you speak about all your boys just shows what a wonderful caring mom you are.

Although it's nothing really, coming from such a small blogger, but I have a "post of the day" feature in my sidebar and it really is more like post of the half-week but this post brought me to tears to quickly and touched me so physically, I have to feature it. Thank you for writing this.

As soon as I hit 'publish' I felt better already.. this was crud, better released.. thanks for receiving it. What you all say is true, and I know it already, but need to hear it again and again.

Loralee, you wrote "Loss like this gets better in tiny bits and pieces. Sometimes you can't see any progress until you stop and look back at where you came from."

Hmmm, chewy. Thanks.. beautifully put.

Joy, thank you for the perspective. You're absolutely right. Infertility must be a horrible, unfair slog, and I'm sorry for how a post like this must strike you.

Kate, Sarah, Nerns, Anna - all so, so right.

You know what's weird? Before all this happened, I'd spent considerable effort in other conversations vigorously defending the idea that birth is "just a day" in comparison with the gravity of motherhood. In most ways, I still believe that - that all births are miraculous, that birth by any means can be powerful, graceful or crippling, heavily dependant on how we carry it.

But... then this happened, and now it's not so simple.

I know that what you say is true, cerebrally - but in my heart I've got loads of unfinished business with birth. It's complicated, messy, illogical. And like so many of you have said, it just takes time for that to fade.

Bon, that's a fascinating twist, the idea of the cattle brand as well as the consumerist brand... how we buy into (or want to belong to) schools of birth, clubs of birth, in the same way that we choose the brands we feel define us, the image we want to project. You make my eyes cross in the most wonderfully thinky way, as always. :)

This is another one of those posts after which you all share so much, and I'm grateful. I wish I could respond to every single one of you over a pot of tea. Just know that I'm absorbing it all, and thank you.

I haven't gone through nearly what you have, but I also conceived three and have two, twins after a fairly early miscarriage. The twins came after a 3rd try at IVF, and 13.5 weeks bed rest. We almost lost them both at 20 weeks, and almost lost one of them due to a meningitis scare at 9 months. Every pregnancy threw me off for that first year or so after the birth, as did everyone whose kids weren't sick all the time as my preemies seemed to be. What healed me tremendously in the end was my best friend and SIL getting pregnant when my boys were 18 months or so and her having a textbook perfect pregnancy and natural birth. Seeing up close and personal exactly what I'd missed out on and desired was extremely painful, and also necessary, because it helped me to really grieve what had been lost in that experience. You've lost the biggest thing of all, a child, and I wonder if the smaller losses don't always have the room to be grieved amidst the larger ones. Maybe you are so in the thick of actually moving forward that it is like being in a train and thinking it's the one next to you that's moving.

You know something funny? I never made a birth plan, because I knew if I did it would go the totally opposite way, I didn't care how my baby was born, only that he was alive and healthy (I lost a daughter 5 years ago at 21 1/2 weeks; natural birth, and the most horrible, sad experience of my life) and I have never, ever been disappointed about having to have a c-section. I guess I just set my birthing experience bar really low in the first place, so I was fine with however it turned out.No offense to anyone at all, but I'm kind of tired of the natural birth movement people telling mothers that the ONLY true great birth experience is totally natural- at home, in your bed or bathtub, no drugs, blah blah. If that is THEIR perfect experience, wonderful- that would not be mine, and I don't care what anyone else says.My family was there at the hospital with me, I heard my son cry for the first time, the anesthesiologist took pictures of my our new family seconds after his birth- yep, I had a good birth!

Me too, sister. Me, too. I lost many too early to count and then , after many doctors and petri dishes and $21,000 I had one extracted from me by c-section before I could even experience labor. I feel like a sham most days, but there's a baby in my arms and how he arrived seems to matter less and less as the days pass. But still.

I have read your site for a while now, and am moved by your words. I was just on the site of Brian Andreas, and one of his mini-stories is this:

"I held him close for only a short time, but after he was gone, I'd see his smile on the face of a perfect stranger & I knew he would be there with me all the rest of my days."

It reminded me of you.

This was heartbreaking and beautiful. It's strange and amazing to me how we can be so affected, by so many lives and losses throughout our life, and yet never touch a certain brand of grief that permeates another's life.

And yet we can all offer support, love, and peace to one another. I love that.

I'm one of those--except for the Poconos, it was a side trip to Edmonton and I'm really hoping the conception happened in the Rockies instead of downtown Edmonton, and there was no Lionel Ritchie or polyester, I'm very happy to report!

The funny thing is, Kate, I've thought about you so much during this pregnancy, about your emergency birth, about Liam, about your healing, about Ben and his gorgeous eyes, it *does* feel like it is a bit about you.

With Atticus's birth, I was also one of those--hell bent on having a non-medicated home birth, and I did. I was lucky. This time around, although I'm planning for the same, I know that if I need to go to the hospital and need any or all sorts of intervention I'll be completely at peace with that. I'm not sure what has changed inside me, but I know part of it is knowing your story.

The trappings of what type of birth we have does affect us. It is a brand, but we can choose to wear it emblazoned on our chest like some shirt back in grade nine, or tucked in behind us, next to our skin. I don't agree that it's 'just a day'--it's too big and important to be given the same rank as the days I mostly just do laundry and ignore the dishes and read the same book a gazillion times. But, just like a wedding doesn't define what kind of marriage a couple will have, a birth doesn't define what kind of mother you will be.

I feel like I'm rambling and not really saying anything (and isn't that what my own blog is for?). I guess, ultimately, I just want to say that I don't believe your body failed you or your boys. You nurtured and gave life. Liam's death was not your fault in any way. And I can promise you, I am not stronger, or made of better stock, or anything else you mention above. I just got lucky, so far. Number Two isn't born yet and who knows what the future holds.

Also, I just know you'd kick my ass in an arm wrestle, so there. ;)

I am one of those, too - not 9 months ago, but close to it. And it didn't happen on vacation - it happened as a coming together through tears and embraces after our own loss ... and it wasn't supposed to happen, but it did and we feel grateful and blessed. And every week that goes by that she is still inside of me I thank everything good in the world. There is always that fear about things going wrong, but I have to keep telling myself to be positive because, well, that is all we have.

With Porter, it was a wonderful birth - I love my OB. I went in at 7:30 am 2cm dilated and he was out by 2:19pm (with the help of some pitossin). He's always been healthy and we have always been thankful at how little he has been sick. But we have now been smacked in the face by this damn pneumonia. It is hard to see my little boy start to turn blue under the eyes and get look of stress in the face after he gets too hyper (like a toddler should) and we have to hit him with an emergency nebulizer treatment. We had to pull him out of school because every cold is causing him to have another relapse. So you just never know - you said this so eloquently once before - that a baby could be born perfectly healthy but have problems later in all sorts of ways. So I don't care how they take this one out of me - just as long as she's healthy - I just want healthy children.

This brings me to my last thought. I think about you and your family daily, Kate. I wonder how you are, wonder if you are having a good or bad day. I am excited for you and your love of photography, and happy that you are using your positive energies to create such beautiful images. I also worry that this pregnancy, me telling you it is a girl, or any of the other things that I might write might bring bad feelings to you about your experiences. You lost a child and we all hate that, all wish it never happened and that Liam was here smiling at us in your pictures too. That is the horrible part. But not the way he and Ben and Evan came into the world. That is their birth stories and it is part of them and you and your stories as a family. They are what make you Kate and Justin, parents of Evan, Ben and Liam. And you should never feel less than because of it. We all do the best we can with what we have. Our birth stories should be remembered because they are part of us - but they are only a drop in the bucket. What probably matters more is how we handle all the rest of it - good or bad. Love to you, Kate - never underestimate your strength or BADASS status.

I know.It will ease.I know.

I came to terms with having a c-section after my first baby was pulled out of me, butt first. Suddenly, all the regret and sense of failure I had about not delivering naturally disappeared.

How we give birth does not make us more or less of a strong woman. How we handle what life throws our way thereafter does.

It's crazy isn't it -- so many women I know, who have lost less than you, including myself, also feel "let down" by their bodies. Just today (before reading this), I was thinking about a friend, who recently had a baby and how strong she was, doing it on her own and I wondered why I was so weak, whether my mind or my body let me down and then I thought -- why do I think these things?

Yes, there is always going to be somebody out there worse-off than you. I wholeheartedly believe that it doesn't make your pain and your grief any less relevant though.

:o) Luisa.

when i was crazed with PPD a good friend reminded me of 'outsides versus insides'. i tend to compare my insides to other people's outsides. but what they show, what they wear out in public is their best self. their stain-free, strongest, shiniest, most badass self.

i think every woman thinks of their own birth when they hear a story of another. i know i do, and i usually end up crying. not happiness for them. but relief, joy, humility and fear for myself. for something that has already come and gone and will never come again. it's just stored in us that way.

what no one ever told me is that it will never go away. all the things that went wrong. all the things that went right. and i dont' know what to do with that information. i write and write and write like projectile vomiting. on bad days my husband asks me how much longer will it take. i believe it will be with me until i die and carry it with me to my next life.

my bag feels heavy. and i know it's not even as heavy as yours. some women wear birth proud like a tattoo, some women are backslapped, some women build walls, and some women are ripped open by birth and wear it as a scar.

don't you think our current climate of competitive mothering has something to do with it? It never ends. From how many kids you have to how you feed them to how much of a little junior achiever they are later on. Endless.

meant to add: the whole birth thing gets sooo competitive. And you don't even have to have had a crisis to feel you have "failed". All yo have to do is get some pain relief or be induced or in some circles even just having your baby in a hospital is enough to label you the wuss of all mothering wusses.

Christ..where does it end. We have guilt about meds or no meds, natural or 'un,' breastfeeding or bottle feeding, attachment or not...

it goes on..the comparisons...the we are all not cookie cutter baby machines and then cookie cutter PERFECT mothers with happy perfect babies who never make us mad or upset...

Where does it end.

We always listen to other tales of birth or pregnancy with the comparisons in mind...and not just the sharing that it should be.

On Sunday I get to go to a tea party for a bunch of 3 year old girls....some of the moms there are pregnant. The host was very worried about how I would react.

I am fine with it. Sad and envious of course, but happy for them.

However...I can imagine that I will make them all uncomfortable...a reminder of the bad things that can happen.

"what no one ever told me is that it will never go away. all the things that went wrong. all the things that went right. and i dont' know what to do with that information. i write and write and write like projectile vomiting. on bad days my husband asks me how much longer will it take. i believe it will be with me until i die and carry it with me to my next life."

This is so true..I have analyzed the birth of my first born for all the 'mistakes' there...pointless..I have a happy healthy 5 year old boy.

I have analyzed over and over the pregnancy and death of my last ...my Scott. And probably will for the rest of my life.

I don't think I will ever get the answers I need...but we all do that don't we?

It's interesting how we put together these ideals of how we ought to be--what makes us a better mother, friend, wife, what makes us the perfect woman. The way we have to give birth, all that goes into and comes out of our bodies. It's good to read these words, because they are so beautiful, and I think you do know, deep down how good you are at what you are doing.

i had three babies and i have one beautiful son ... but today and yesterday and likely tomorrow i feel like i am finally moving forward, in little bits of cozy warmth ... never forward enough to forget or to stop the tears from coming when i least expect them but yet there is movement and it is good but i never take any little thing or any big thing for granted anymore and i am somehow comforted by that ...

Kate, just found your blog via your NICU-tagged photos on Flickr. I share your experience of the unexpected c-section, the excrutiating long separation from my new baby, and the lingering sense that somehow I had failed (even though my son *did* eventually come home and is now a happy, healthy toddler). Your words describe my own feelings brilliantly. Thank you for publishing these dark thoughts -- you help me and so many others know that we are not alone. Your boys are so lucky to have such a mom.

3 babies, no children here.

it all worked out in the end. my body has continued to fail me in other, more serious ways, and yet...i am still badass.

you're badass too, never doubt that. and i'll bet your husband is very proud of you.

kate, you are such a m*ther f*cking bad ass it isn't even a question. what difference should it make to you or anyone how your children became yours?

the collective wisdom of the group here is remarkable- the details of conception, pregnancy, birth- adoption- are important to be sure, but pale in comparison to the details of who you are as a mama. i know women who have allowed their conception/birth experiences define them and i know women who have said "it doesn't matter" and defined their mothering from the moment their child was put in their arms forward.

i know it's easy to get stuck in the anxiety of how our bodies "failed" in some way- but you- you, kate- you are not a failure- you are a remarkable woman and an incredible mother and *you* are not the failure. you are doing the very best with what you *can* control- and as hard as it is, we have to find ways of letting go of all those variables that we aren't able to control.it's so hard. xo.

Ride out your feelings, mamacita. You're doin' fine.

I've given birth both ways. My c-sec was with hubby number two. TOTALLY robbed of the birth experience that I knew, was familiar with. And wanted so very much to share with him. He would have been SO GOOD through it all. Instead. Emergency c-sec. Scary as hell. You know this, even more so than I.

All jusifiable feelings. All of them. Yours, mine...all.

Like the people and the books say...as time passes, it gets easier. And dammit, they're right. I'm not one to agree with the masses, but they're right.

Well(here I go, disagreeing again)...I wouldn't say easier. I'd say lighter.

You want to hear about a naive and petulant child? I had partial previa with Monkey. So what do you suppose was I whining about on the way home from the first hospital stay? What if the previa doesn't move and I have to have a c-section? How could I possibly be a mother without experiencing even one contraction. Can we have a giant "stupid, stupid girl" please? I think Bon has something here-- the whole empowerment bull makes it sound like life-saving medical interventions are taking something away from us instead of giving us something we might never get otherwise.Bad-ass my deep blue eyes (for the record, mine are nowhere near blue, although I am told they are in fact deep). We can't control what happens to us, the unexpected curves life throws our way-- just what we do with them. And don't you dare tell me you are not bad-ass in that department.

kate. thank you so much for making me think and consider the problem of happiness. it's nearly impossible to think of it any other way when the loss is so great and your love so deep. sending much kindness your way today.

I have never understood why the way I gave birth to my children should define me -- and it doesn't. Sorry, but I just don't get it. I had two c-sections, just like you. I am grateful and humbled by my body for producing two incredibly beautiful, healthy, kind, funny, smart children. The way in which they came into the world was no less joyous even though they emerged from my belly instead of between my legs.

My body fought cancer (through no fault of it's own -- just a bad hand it was dealt, a bad gene that determined it would have cancer by age 40, a 100% certainty). It told me something was wrong, but I was young and didn't listen. But it pestered me, until finally I heard. (Getting a doctor to listen was another story... ) Then, it made it through major surgery, had a huge part of itself removed, had months of grueling toxic chemo, and reconstructive surgery.

And after all of that, it produced babies, at an age when many couldn't. And yes, I miscarried one. But I am too grateful for my son, who came soon after.

I am grateful to my body for all it has done, and vow to take better care of it (those babies have let it get fat and out of shape).

Kate, your body has been just as wonderful and strong. None of what happened was your body's fault, none of it. What happened was an accident -- your body did not fail to protect your precious babies (it told you something was wrong that day)....how could you not see how strong it is? Your body carried not one baby, but two at the same time -- that is a feat! Your body healed, and nursed and cradled and fed and played and laughed... it has done everything your babies have needed it to do.

Your thoughts are so often like my very own.All I can do is offer you peace and strength.

I enjoy reading your posts because your writing validates my own feelings. I have had five babies. Two of them are dead due to extreme prematurity. Three other pregnancies ended in early miscarriage. But I have three living, healthy, happy children. I am grateful. But my feelings are what they are--happy and (much of the time) conflicted.

Birth is vile. Labor is stupid.

I had 2 c-sections. The first one only sucked becuase I believed all the bullshit about magical birth and power-through pain. It was ALL TOTAL LIES. The recovery was easy!

My second one, the birth of my twins, was the single happiest day of my life. A totally painless, opiate filled, happy happy truly magic day.

This is the way I look at it - births are to mothering what weddings are to marriages. Would you rather be a good mother or a good birther? Would you rather be a beautiful bride or the best partner in the world? I hate to say it, but girly-girls are so stupid this way, confusing or collapsing the two.

C-sections can be wonderful. I have the vagina to prove it.