“People love to tell moms-to-be about how exhausted they are going to be. Some almost seem to get a thrill from teasing about the sleepless nights that lay ahead.
‘Just you wait,’ they’ll say with a knowing smirk, ‘life with a baby is exhausting.’
I’m here to tell you that life without the baby is exhausting too.
When your baby dies and you return home empty handed, you will also face many sleepless nights. Just like those mothers who are up all night soothing a fussy baby, you will know what it is like to be completely exhausted.
The difference is, you will be alone on those sleepless nights.
Instead of rocking a baby to sleep, you will sit up for hours eyes red and stinging from too many tears. With the TV on to drown out the silence, you will alternate between pacing the floors and starting into the emptiness. You will be exhausted, but you will find it hard to sleep. You know that waking up means living in a nightmare.
It is exhausting to be up all night without your baby.
I know that being up all night with a living baby is hard too. But it’s a different kind of hard. There’s something about feeling their warm breath and hearing those tiny sighs that makes the most difficult nights bearable.
There’s something about having empty arms that makes the most difficult nights that much worse.
So, to the mothers who are up all night without their baby–I want you to know that I see you.
I know how exhausting it is to be up all night about without the baby. I also know that it won’t always be this hard.
But, right now, the nights feel so long when your arms are so empty.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Rachel Whalen of An Unexpected Family Outing. The article originally appeared here. Submit your story here, and be sure to subscribe to our best love stories here.
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