Guest Posts Galore!

Today seems to be the day for guest posts! You can find me over at Still Breathing, where I wrote a love letter to a mother pregnant again after loss:

Dearest mumma,
You are so brave. I know you probably don’t think you are, but please know that you are braver than you realize. If you’re anything like me, your pregnancy after loss is the hardest thing you have done since you said goodbye to your precious baby. I became pregnant just ten short weeks after my daughter was stillborn. Never had I felt such a strange mix of emotions – I was elated to know that at least one of my children was alive but I was so very scared that I was going to experience another loss. It takes courageto have another baby after loss; it takes bravery to face each new day. Pregnancy after loss is a long journey and you, sweet mumma, are the bravest of all mothers... click here to continue reading.

You can also pop over to Life and Grace where I am sharing some advice on how to show love to a friend who is pregnant after a loss:

When my first child Ariella Jade was stillborn last January, I knew that I wanted to get pregnantagain and have another baby. My arms felt so empty and while no subsequent children could replace Ariella, I believed that having a living baby in my arms would bring me immense healing. And I was right – the birth of my son Levi on January 4 has helped me to heal in ways I didn’t imagine. But my pregnancy with him was without a doubt the most worrying and anxiety filled weeks of my life. You see, it was hard not to expect history to repeat itself and for that pregnancy to also end in loss. The only way I survived those intense 38 weeks was through prayer and the support of my family, medical staff and friends. Here are some ways that you can show a friend L.O.V.E. if you want to support a friend who is pregnant after a loss (please excuse the corny acronym, but it fits!)... click here to continue reading.

And while I'm at it, I don't think I shared the link to my January Still Standing article, which also happened to be about pregnancy after loss. In it, I share honestly the thoughts in my mind as I approached the end of my pregnancy:

When I got pregnant after my daughter’s stillbirth, I knew it wouldn’t be an easy nine months. Between worrying about people’s reactions (because contrary to popular opinion, this pregnancy will not ‘fix’ me) and constant concern over whether the baby is moving enough, it has been a very draining time. There are still a few weeks to go. People can tell me it is going to be okay and try to be reassuring but it just does not help. They say this Christmas without Ariella will be hard, but next Christmas it will be different. But how do they know? My mind races and over thinks absolutely everything, just as it has from the moment that second line showed on the pregnancy test. Because here’s the thing: in my experience, I have babies and they die. One pregnancy, one loss...click here to continue reading.

Some rather exciting news

Some of you may have heard of Still Standing Magazine. It's an online magazine/blog dedicated to writing about all aspects of infertility and pregnancy/infant loss. Still Standing's mission statement is:

In the face of loss and infertility, our mission is to show the world that we are still standing. Holding fast to resilience and hope. Our mission is to help you embrace life for everything that it is after experiencing the loss of a child or infertility.

I can't remember when I first came across the site, but I'm so glad I did. Over the past nine months, I have found immense comfort and healing in the articles posted there. They encourage people to submit guest posts, and so one day I decided I might give it a go. After a particularly difficult day, I wrote a piece called Perfectionism and Loss. It was about my struggles with wanting (needing?) things to be perfect and feeling like a failure after Ariella's death. I submitted it as a guest post, and was rather stunned to have it accepted. It was published on October 14 and if you haven't read it already, you can find it here.

In the weeks between having the post accepted and it being published, Still Standing put out a call for more regular contributors on their Facebook page. Maybe it was because I was still on a slight high from having the guest post accepted, but I decided to reply. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to get picked, but in the spirit of "do things without being scared of failure" (that I wrote about in Perfectionism and Loss) I thought it was worth a shot. When I got an email from the editor saying that they wanted me to join the team, I think I went into shock. 

Me? Regularly posting on the site that has been one of the biggest helps to me this year? It seemed too crazy to be true. But it is true. As of November, I will be posting once a month on Still Standing Magazine! I'm so very excited, and also quite nervous. But looking forward to it nonetheless!