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The Simple Piece of Paper That Triggered My Worst Memories

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A simple piece of paper shouldn't make you question all things good and true in your life.

A simple piece of paper shouldn't make your mind wander to what could have been.

A simple piece of paper shouldn't trigger feelings of loss and utter heartache.

A simple piece of paper shouldn't make you question God and all of the things He has laid out before us in our time here on Earth.

A simple piece of paper shouldn't make you want to punch something so hard that your knuckles bleed and the bones in your fingers crack with anger.

But, this is what a simple piece of paper such as this one make us miscarriage mamas feel every time have to fill them out.

It's a standard form. One I've filled out many times before and I'm sure will encounter again before my days are done. To most people it looks like a generic new patient form. More specifically, a new patient form you'd fill out at a OBGYN's office.

As I was filling out the 10 page packet for my new doctor's office, I stopped when I got to page 4. The part where you have to tell them how many pregnancies you've had and how many living children you now have. Plus, words like "abortion" in the column where you have to put how your babies entered this world. Alive or not alive.

It hurts. It hurts that as grateful and appreciative as I am that I get to place the name of my two boys on that chart, I also feel the constant, never ending sting of loss for the two babies who's "name," "age," and "weeks of gestation" will never compare to their brothers. Though, they have names in my heart, and I have a strong sense of the gender of them both, the last part, the part that describes when they left this world for Heaven is the saddest of all.

There is something disheartening and cold about these forms. Though, I get they are medically necessary, they break my heart every time. They remind me of that place deep inside of myself, one that not many people get to see, where I keep the pain locked away and don't often talk about it. The pain of a life unknown, a life without two of my babies, a pain this side of Heaven only parents of the unborn know.

I wish there was another way. A simpler way. A less painstaking way to ask me about my other two children. Because I'm always more than willing to talk about them, just not as an after fact or medical procedure. Because to me, they are so much more.

This post originally appeared on These Boys of Mine by Britt LeBoeuf

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