For my Rainbow Baby,

It has taken me nearly a year since your birth to acknowledge you as my Rainbow Baby for a number of reasons.

I distrusted my pregnancy.

Until your 20 week Anatomy Scan, I held my breath through every appointment, waiting for something to go wrong. It took me until after that appointment to genuinely smile whenever someone would tell me, “Congratulations,” and until I was able to feel you moving before I let myself bond with you. Calling you a Rainbow Baby then wasn’t something I was emotionally ready to do.

Then you were born.

And in no time at all, it felt as though you have always been here. It feels strange to grieve a baby whose survival would have meant that you never came into our lives. And my love for you is so deep, how can I possibly wonder who would have been? I don’t really wonder who that baby would have been because, in a way that I can’t quite explain, you and the one I lost are somehow the same. My hopes, dreams, wonders for the one I lost transferred to you. 

I don’t feel that I struggled enough.

You are my second child, my third pregnancy. You came easily after my miscarriage–a healthy pregnancy, healthy delivery, healthy baby. And while knowing that my miscarriage experience is common among women gave me some comfort when I otherwise might have blamed myself, knowing how much other women struggle left me feeling undeserving. Because I have only had one miscarriage, because I didn’t need medical intervention to be able to hold you, I haven’t earned the right to call you my Rainbow. 

Only a few months ago, my grandfather jokingly asked if I was pregnant again. I understood his intent in the moment, however poorly delivered, and forgave him even as I told him the joke wasn’t funny. He didn’t know. Nonetheless, I excused myself and cried. The moment he had spoken the words, I acutely felt the pain and sadness, the emptiness that had followed my miscarriage. I remembered what it had felt like to be “not pregnant” when I so wanted to be, and those feelings overwhelmed me all over again. Pictures from that time trigger memories of my grief because I remember each moment of that summer relative to my miscarriage.

Now that I’m writing this, I think that has been my problem with calling you my Rainbow Baby all along. That term, for me, has been completely intertwined with my grief. Thinking of you as a Rainbow Baby only called to mind the storm.

Knowing you today–that you love climbing, using your muscles, playing peek-a-boo, blackberries, and making loud noises (unless you’re eating, in which case, you prefer to be left alone)–reminds me of how miraculous this whole baby thing is, even under the most flawless of circumstances. 

Knowing you is knowing joy. And though it took me a while to get here, I realize that knowing pregnancy loss has added another dimension to that joy, in the same way that salt can bring out the sweet.

I did not deserve my loss, did not cause it. It is not a rite of passage or simply a common occurrence. Pregnancy Loss is not a badge I have to earn, and it isn’t necessary or helpful to qualify my experience or compare it to others. Miscarriage was something I suffered. 

You remind me of the joy that exists beyond that suffering.

I am starting to understand that this is what Rainbow Baby is supposed to signify. So, today–a day nearly 2 years in the making–I call you what you are. My Rainbow Baby.