Statistically Speaking

Have you ever wondered how it feels to be a statistic?  Sometimes being a statistic is a good thing...Other times it's not.  I am 1 in 4.  I am the face of infant loss.  That means 25% of pregnancies will end in miscarriage, infant loss, or still birth.  When I start feeling sorry for myself and ask the question "Why me?" My heart starts breaking for the other momma's out there that are asking themselves the same question.  When you think of it as 1 in 4, you realize it happens more often than you think and more often than you hear.

It's a statistic I wish I wasn't a part of, but now I have to deal with.  Sometimes I think I have, "My baby died," stamped on my forehead by the looks I get from people who KNOW what happened, but don't say anything.  That silence is deafening by the way, especially since we love to hear other people say our baby's names to reaffirm that they were here.  Other times I wish I did, so I didn't have to explain my "funk", my sadness, or the quietness that has overtaken my normally friendly personality. 

I've often wondered if mother's who've suffered the loss of a child can recognize another mother of loss?  Do our soul's silently speak to each other?  We all wear "the mask," that lovely mask to hide the immense pain we feel.  Especially on the days when we think of our child that we have lost at every quiet moment.  Oh wait, that would be every day.  The mask of when you ask how we are doing we answer with a short "I'm okay" and look away quickly so you can't see the truth blaze into our eyes.  That's the one thing our mask doesn't hide...our eyes.  We may put on a brave face but that mask can't hide the fact that our smile never makes it fully to our eyes anymore. 

I have always believed that your eyes are the mirror to your soul.  This bothers me because I don't recognize my own eyes anymore.  I've never been able to and still to this day cannot hide my emotions from my eyes.  They don't lie, you can easily tell when I'm happy, sad, mad, or confused.  When I look into the mirror now I don't recognize the eyes staring back at me, they are someone else's.  These new eyes are filled with pain, suffering, with fear...they almost seem empty.  These eyes always look lost like they are searching for something in a far away place.  Ironically, they are...they are trying to picture heaven and what their sweet baby boy is doing at that moment.  I may smile, I may laugh, but it never reaches my eyes anymore.  This makes me wonder if I will ever get that sparkle back?  Will my heart ever feel whole again?  Will I ever truly laugh again?  Honestly, I don't know...

My son is also a statistic, an evil horrible statistic that I wish didn't exist. Every year in the United States 4 million babies are born.  Out of the 4 MILLION babies born there are 1,600 diagnosed with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH).   And out of these 1,600 CDH babies, 800 of them die.  Waylon on a good day had only a 50% chance of survival, but add prematurity on top of that and his odds stacked up against him quickly.  Waylon is 1 in 2.  There is no known cause of CDH.  The only treatment for CDH is surgery, but even these babies who survive surgery live a LIFETIME with the chance of reherniation or with other complications.  This is NOT okay...Something needs to be done.  Please help spread awareness of CDH, it is the only way they will be able to find a cause to help prevent this horrible birth defect. This birth defect that changed my life and made me a statistic. But worst of all, this birth defect that took my son's life and made him a statistic.