josiah+co. Blog

I’m technically still pregnant. Pregnant with a corpse; a shell of what once was.⠀ My body hasn’t registered our loss yet. She’s just going about her day, oblivious to the reality within her. ⠀ I guess she never got the paperwork.⠀ So I’ll wait with her.⠀ We are waiting and I am fighting for the care I know she needs.⠀ Amidst covid restrictions, and red taped ORs, I’m waiting to find someone who will take us in; someone who will save us the trauma and possibility of bleeding out at home.⠀ The reality is, first trimester loss isn’t ‘just a...

It has been 5 years since my body first birthed death; since having to say hello and goodbye all in one breath.⠀ This boy made me a mother of sons, but I walked out of the hospital empty handed and broken hearted that weekend.⠀ I will never forget those moments. The moments of dropping my eldest son off at friends, so I could go to the hospital alone to birth a baby I knew I wouldn’t be taking home. The moments of calling my husband halfway around the world to tell him our son had died. The pain, and the...

This past decade has been extremely painful and beautiful; full of grief and joy.   I graduated university. Left my church. Moved cities. Had my heart broken. Lost friends.   I fell in love with Hamilton. Found a new church. Made new friends.   I discovered the Holy Spirit. Lost my faith. Discovered new expressions of faith. Left the church again.   I became a wife and a mother.   I birthed both life and death.   I broke up with myself as I learned how to parent, and learned how to parent after loss, again and again and again....

Three years ago, I joined the shittiest club in the world. I thought this club would make me "better." You know, heal all the wounds I had experienced; whatever that means. I'm getting ahead of myself though - you see, three years ago we lost a child. We already had two healthy, alive children, and we weren't expecting anything different with this one either. My wife was eight days overdue with our third, and we were prepared. The kids were ready, the room and crib were prepared, the holy-shit-it's-time-hospital bag was packed and ready to go. We were ready. Until...

My grief had become unbearable. Pushed down and ignored, it came to a bubbling point after our ‘rainbow baby’ arrived. This was supposed to be a joyful time, wasn’t it? I was supposed to be happy and ecstatic that our ‘rainbow’ was finally here. Wasn’t she supposed to wipe all the grief away? Heal the pain of our previous losses?Instead of joy, and delight, and gratefulness, I was drowning in fear, and anger, and guilt. As I held my screaming newborn I would dose off in daydreams, finding myself running away to far away places or driving my car off...