There are days when life seems calm, children playing quietly in the living room, sunlight pouring through the door, and a mother watching them. On one such day, she felt peaceful. Her son was sleeping, and her daughters were quietly reading on the couch. She looked at her family, and for a moment, she let her mind wander. It had been nine years since she lost her first baby. And sometimes, she still wondered what her life would have been like if that baby had survived.
She remembered that loss often. But she never really talked about it. And she wasn’t alone. Many people, including mothers, stay silent after a miscarriage. Who wants to remember a baby that never came home? Who wants to think about a mom who never got the chance to hold her child? But on this quiet afternoon, something inside her changed. As the light spilled through the back door, it struck her photographer’s heart: she realized it had been long enough. She decided to give up her lost baby and everything she felt. She picked up her camera, set it on a timer, placed it on a dog bowl, and turned the lens on herself. In a single moment, she tried to remember coming home from the hospital the day they told her she had lost the baby. She remembered crying alone on the floor. She remembered the confusion, the grief, the shame.
She carried a heavy burden. She felt lost. She thought she’d never be able to have children because of something she heard from the ultrasound technician. She felt judged for being young, unmarried, and vulnerable. She felt shame, grief, and fear. She pretended she was fine. She told the one person who asked that she was okay. She buried her crying in the bathroom at work, muffling it in her sweater, because she couldn’t explain why she felt so broken.
Years later, after a second loss and two healthy children, her “rainbow babies,” she realized something important. That photograph she took wasn’t just for herself. It was a way to give recognition to a grieving mother who no longer felt invisible. It was a way to say: “I mattered. My baby mattered. My feelings mattered.” That self-portrait, with her tears exposed, was honest and painful but real. Because with miscarriage, there is no funeral, no goodbye. There’s only an empty crib and toys that will never be hugged. There’s grief no one knows how to mourn. Many times, loss after miscarriage is silent. People expect you to move on, forget, or be “grateful” for what you have. But grief doesn’t work that way. It lingers. It turns you inward. It questions your identity as a parent.
In taking that self-portrait, allowing herself to feel the pain, the heartbreak, the emptiness, she wrote a very different kind of story. She wrote of honesty. One of remembrance. One of courage. She said what many feel but don’t say. She reminded herself, and others, that the pain of miscarriage can’t and shouldn’t be hidden. And maybe, just maybe, letting others see can help someone know this: you are not alone. You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to share. You are allowed to heal. In that moment, with one click, she gave her loss a face and gave grief a voice. I am 1 in 4and my story matters. “Even a silent loss leaves a loud echo in a mother’s heart. “This photo is my way of saying my baby mattered, my grief mattered, and I am not alone. “Healing began the moment I allowed myself to feel the pain.”
