Day 4

Day 4 - your favorite book. has it changed since your loss?

After Alexandra died, the one thing I did to find comfort was to read any book I could about stillbirth, pregnancy loss, dead babies, etc. I had tons of other books waiting to be read, but if it wasn't about a stillbirth, forget about it. It was going to sit there and collect dust. I needed to know that I wasn't alone and that this kind of thing happened to other good people all around the world. I needed to find out the reasons why and I wanted to hear other people's stories. What I found was, no matter how early or late the loss was, all of the feelings were the same. The same pain was felt. The same feelings were had and everyone had to somehow learn how to survive with this feeling of emptiness.

One of the first books I read was, "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination" by Elizabeth McCracken. I read it in one single night. Everything she said was so true, honest and real. It was like I wrote the book myself, except that I had not yet been pregnant with another baby. I was hoping I would, so in another way this book gave me some hope too. They all did. Here are a few quotes from the book. I highly recommend it for anyone who has experienced this type of loss.

"This is why you need everyone you know after a disaster, because there is not one right response. It's what paralyzes people around the grief-stricken, of course, the idea that there are right things to say and wrong things and it's better to say nothing than something clumsy."

"For us what was killing was how nothing had changed. We'd been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our old life."

"As for me, I believe that if there's a God - and I am as neutral on the subject as is possible - then the most basic proof of His existence is black humor. What else explains it, that odd, reliable comfort that billows up at the worst moments, like a beautiful sunset woven out of the smoke over a bombed city."

Also check out this excerpt after it was reviewed in Oprah magazine.