An article I want to share

I'm sitting awake right now, my husband sleeping in the next room but as usual sleep isn't happening for me just yet. I wanted to share an internet article about a baby who was born at 21 weeks. Strangely enough, her name is Amillia. Amillia's good fortune though was that the doctors had time to get her out via c-section. The trauma of labor & birth is what killed our Amelia.
But I wanted people to see the pictures of this baby. She is so very tiny, but she is real. And, believe it or not, our Amelia was bigger than this baby- an inch longer and over an ounce heavier.
The baby in the article is an African-American baby, so she looks alot darker & browner, but this is startling close to what our daughter looked like. Tiny and frail, but very much a baby.
I get very frustrated because I feel like many people around me think that, after 6 months, I shouldn't still be grieving like I do. Like I am content to wallow in my grief.
I think alot of people think that unless you lose a 'real' 8-lbs full term baby, it's easier to heal. That a baby you never 'knew' doesn't have the same attachment. But it doesn't matter if your baby died at 5 weeks, 5 months, or full-term. Your child is gone. No one expects a mother who loses an infant to be OK after 6 months. No one expects the mother whose toddler dies to be OK after 6 months.

I can also see how uncomfortable it makes people when I talk about my daughter. Especially people with their own new or soon-to-be babies. Being reminded that babies DO die makes people feel uneasy. But that doesn't mean I should be expected not to talk about her.

I know very well that life must go on, and the world will keep moving around me. But I still feel like it's moving without me. And I think it's OK for me to still feel like that. I'm working through it, but it's a slow process.

Look at these pictures, and if this was your child, if you held her tiny body & felt it go from warm to cold in your hands, would you be back to your normal self in 6 months?

http://funny.zeeblum.com/2007/02/21/baby-born-at-less-than-22-weeks-survives/