Capture Your Grief - Day 13. Regrets and Triggers

What are some regrets that you have about your experience with grief so far? Do you believe there is a way to heal that regret? Do you have any grief triggers? Maybe it is the pregnant woman in the store or a scent that reminds you of that time in your life. Perhaps it is a sound, song, season etc. Share what pulls on your heart strings.

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Regrets. I wish we had professional photos of our very brief time with Simone. I never knew about Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep or other services. Perhaps they mentioned it to us in the hospital, maybe they didn't. It's hard to say, everything was such a blur. The very few cell phone photos we have show Simone's delicate skin tearing, the discolor, and don't capture our family. The one photo we have of Lane holding his baby girl is blurry. I regret that we don't have more high quality photos of the few hours we had with our baby girl. 

I wondered if I would regret not having Easton come to the hospital to meet Simone. On some level, I wish we could have had a photo of us all with her, that he could have seen her. But on another, I think it just would have been confusing for him. He would probably have been running around the hospital room, possibly unaware of the severity of the situation. Or may be he would have just gotten it. After we met some babies born very close to Simone, Easton would ask if those babies were Simone. He still messes up his pronouns with his cousin Isaac, born three days after Simone. It's the only boy he refers to as she or her.  So I do wonder how things might have been different, but I feel like we did the right age appropriate thing for Easton. 

Triggers. I never know when a new wave of grief will sneak up and crash down over me. Sometimes it's a song like You Are My Sunshine, which Gabriela always sang to my belly in hopes that her sister would recognize her voice after being born. Other times it's a song like Let it Be. It's not always the same. 

It's sad to admit, but my nephew is a trigger. He was born three days after my Simone. Everytime I see him, I see exactly what my baby girl would be doing. How she'd be toddling around, saying mama. It's been 18 months and it hasn't really gotten much easier. I am afraid he will forever be that marker. And I can't help it. 

I'm scared I will discover new triggers when I return to the hospital to birth this rainbow baby of mine. I have already discovered that the soap at the hospital transports me right back to those first few days, fresh with grief. I packed our own  soap, although being at the hospital a few times a week is helping to normalize that scent, making it less traumatic.