Trauma with your mama story No. 004

**Trigger warning: miscarriage*

I had a dream where I felt the weight of a baby on my chest, my hand cradling his bottom and head as our bodies gave each other radiating heat and love. I knew this dream baby was coming and I knew we were meant to be—it was a promise from the universe. As I sit now, with that life streaming down my legs in a warm, bloody river, I take a deep breath and remember. I felt the buzzy energy of hope. I felt more alive, patient, loving. This soul had chosen me! I felt anointed. How cruel to learn the fragility of life through the torrid, relentless cramping of my uterus and my heart. I think of my own mother who so casually said she never cared if she had children and my heart jerks. Her consistency in being flippant with emotions was her only reliability. She’ll never know about this grandchild who died in my womb, whose egg she carried in her own body while she carried me. That enchantingly lovely connection will elude her. To share this pain with her will only result in another layer woven into the heavy blanket of loneliness I’ve always carried with me. Even in this moment of great weakness, I’m strong enough to recognize that. I retract my vulnerability. How motherhood can make her so recklessly ambivalent while I twist and turn and pray and beg and scream out to have my baby back. The pain of wanting her to love me like I loved this baby hurts my soul. I hear my children calling me and they bring me back to the present. The present where I am breaking the generational patterns of hurt and distrust and disillusionment to the power of love. I take their hands and walk with them into a new story we are creating together. My inner child finally tries to smile.

—J.A.