I HATE the term

Baby Loss Mom.  Or Mother.  Or Mama.  Or BLM.

I think because it emphasizes so much on the word Baby.  Or, maybe it's just in my head that it does.

To me, I don't think it matters how old your child was when they passed away.  The pain is still enough to make you feel as though someone cut through your chest with the dullest of spoons, ripped out your heart, stomped on it, put it through a paper shredder, then grabbed a couple of those pieces up, shoved them back in your chest cavity, stitched you up with a rusted needle and sent you your way to see if you survive it or not.

Sometimes, I think that when people find out we had a son that passed away, they find it less heartbreaking to find out that he was "just a baby" and that someone makes it a little more Ok?  Because after all, we didn't have as much time to get to know him, or to bond with him, or to become attached.

Seriously.

I mean seriously?

And I get it.  I think there are different pains depending on how old your child is when you are forced into making their final arrangements.  Whether your child was born still, or passed as an infant, a toddler, a child, a teenager or a grown adult with their own family, the pain is just as intense.  It is still such a raw feeling that makes you want to puke.

You miss different things.  You either miss the things they would do or you miss not knowing the things they would have done.  You either see them in their own children or you see them in their siblings.  You either get to reflect on the years you created memories together or you spend those years wondering what memories you would have created.  You either miss them and their quirky ways or you miss them and learning about their personality traits.

I just do not understand how we got to a point where we started differentiating.  Where we started almost justifying it.  As though if you had decades with your child, that made the pain less unbearable or if you didn't have a chance to find out what their favorite color was somehow the pain isn't as terrible.  After all, you didn't even know them or you had that time together.

And I do know that the term isn't used to be hurtful or differentiate necessarily.  I get that.  I respect that.  I respect those that feel comfortable using it, I respect those that want a community like feeling and get that when they can classify themselves with others.  I mean, after all, there are terms for widows and orphans, yet there has yet to be a term to describe the horrific feeling of being a parent forever separated from your child.  There is no term imaginable that can sum up what it is like to continue living when your child does not.  But, regardless of the child's age, the parents are left with that pain.

At the end of the day, I wish there was a term.  A term that can just sum up a sentence when asked how many kids you have and where the missing one is as quickly as the term widow and orphan.  And I'm surprised that with how unfortunately common it is in today's world and how we are working on grieving and accepting and growing as a community we don't have one.

One day.