To Anyone Who Has Experienced a Loss Like Mine

I do not know how to start this or what to say. I am reaching out because despair is so close a companion these days, and I am desperate to connect with someone who has suffered a loss like mine.

Nearly a month ago, my two-year old daughter, Lizzy, died. She had a cold and a fever, and within 72 hours, all of her organs had failed and several cardiac arrests resulted in total brain death, swelling into her brain stem. We have very few answers about why or how she died, and there are a lot of unknowns about why she progressed so fast. At the time of her passing, I was 8 months pregnant with her little sister, Cecelia. I am now 41 weeks and 2 days pregnant, expecting Cecelia any day now.

I don’t know what to say except that I wanted to die with her. A part of me feels that I did die the day she died, and a part of me even resents Cecelia for tethering me to life when there are times that all I want to do is follow Lizzy into her grave.

I am experiencing trauma from the last days of her life, her illness, and the days spent in three different hospitals and two PICUs. I am not allowed, however, to do any PTSD therapies because I am pregnant. I am also experiencing a grief so profound that it colors every minute that passes, causing me to vacillate between panic and despair, an obligation to move forward for the child in my womb, and a desire to die with the child in a grave.

My husband and I are separated so Lizzy was the center of my world. We breastfed and co-slept every night of her life since the night she was born. We ate every meal together, and shared every activity, from errands to cooking to play-dates to family events. We were never apart. She was my firstborn and only child until this pregnancy began in August of 2018. The absence of Lizzy in my life is a gasping, gaping chasm that threatens to swallow me at every turn.

I have daily panic attacks and night terrors. For weeks, I had to medicate myself to sleep with Melatonin and Benadryl. I feel I am running away from the trauma of the hospital, and yet everywhere I turn, I see and feel Lizzy, and the grief leaves me aching and sobbing. I have been experiencing start-and-stop contractions for over a week, and I know Cecelia is ready to come any day. It is all too much to hold in my brain, and I feel utterly broken.

I have been writing daily letters to Lizzy, but I am hoping to connect with someone who has survived a loss like mine through starting this blog. I am literally straddling the line between the death of one child and the birth of another, and it is clear to me that I am being asked to survive Lizzy’s death for Cecelia’s sake.

The problem is that I do not know how to survive Lizzy’s death. A part of me believes that this is something you just don’t come back from. If there is anyone out there who has lost a young child, a toddler, like this, please help me. Please help me figure out how to live for another child, even though I have yet to meet her.

If you are out there and you have survived a loss like this, please help me. Please help me learn what the word “survive” even means after this.