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[quote=Anonymous]OP, my first child died in the hospital before ever coming home... although it was on the eve of the day she was supposed to be released to come home (13 days old).

Anyway, intially you will probably be hosting a lot of people who are coming for the funeral.  It almost seemed like I was expected to be host of a party -- and I was caught in this weird feeling of trying to be the pleasant host and also be the grieving mother.  It was weird.  Then everyone goes home/away and it is very quite... like a big flurry of activity and then a vacuum.  And that's when you are left to figure out how to go on with life.  You feel like the world should stop and be sad b/c there was a huge loss to the world (i.e. your child)... and yet, the trains are running and people are going about their normal business.

That is a hard time... when you realize the world is going on as normal.

This is a good time to start looking at charities that you might want to support in your child's name.  Or things that you can do to make your child's life mean something, even if it isn't big and splashy.

I also read the book "When Bad Things Happen To Good People" -- really helped me a lot.

A few months later, we had re-established our normal routine.  Our tears were gone and we had come to accept that this is the way it is.  I purposely took a day off of work to devote solely to making a scrapbook to memorialize my child's life (and the pregnancy leading up to it).  It was important to me to physically report the story.  It wasn't just something in my memories -- it was real.  I felt it was a way of honoring her life -- as short as it was -- and my memories of the whole process.  Taking off of work to do it also was something I wanted to do to say that this is the most important work I need to do.  It is not a Sat. afternoon hobby.  It is business that needs to be attended to.

It was also a way for me to honor my child while also closing the book on that segment of our lives.  Of course we remember her, but life is for the living.  So, it was time to wrap up the past with respect and then mentally look forward.

Everyone has hardships in life -- whether we see them out in the open (like the death of a child) or whether they are happening behind closed doors.  Having a child die brings universal sympathy, but I never think of myself as any different than anyone else -- we all take our hits and we have to get up and keep going.

I'm sorry your child's life is so short.  Take comfort in loving her as much as you can.

(Note to others:  please, please, don't say to a grieving parent -- "it was all God's plan" or "at least you have another child" or anything like that.  No one wants to hear that you think it was God's plan to rip a child away from his/her parent.  Keep your platitudes to yourself and just say "I'm sorry" or "she was a ray of joy" or something like that.)[/quote]

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