If he had lived my life would be totally different now

[LAlexander7]

TW living Children & Stillbirth

Full disclosure, not the mum but the dad. We lost our son who was stillborn in 2017. And fast forward 5 years after lots of trying and losses. We now have 2 children under 2.

I have this strange/horrible feeling and thoughts about our son, if he had lived we wouldn't have had our children that we have now. And I would never have known them as they are right this moment in time with their exact personalities. But for us to have them we had to lose our son, which I wouldn't want anyone else to have to go through.

So how do you come to terms with these thoughts? Or don't you think about them.

I can see what you mean, there's a bit of a cognitive dissonance isn't there ? You wish you hadn't lost your first child, but wishing that sort of entails that you wish your other children weren't there, in a twisted way.

I think you need to accept that the what-ifs are the path to insanity. What if your first child had lived ? Your life might have gone a thousand different ways. When we imagine the what ifs we tend to picture the best outcomes, but actually you don't know what might have happened. Maybe you'd have had other misfortunes befall you and/or subsequent children who didn't end up existing. Maybe not. You'll never know and in the end it doesn't matter because that's not what happened.

You may have been headed down a certain path, and were forcefully pushed to another. That wasn't your choice and there's nothing to feel guilty about. The path you ended up on brought you joy (your other two kids) but that doesn't make the landslide that precipitated you there (your first child's passing) any less painful. He's not less desired or loved because his passing opened the door to a different life with different joys, and you're not betraying his memory by loving your two living children.

I had an early loss (in no way comparable I know). At the time it was hard. Now I feel like it was meant to be and I am thankful, because this means I got to have my amazing, beautiful little boy who was conceive a couple of months later. I don't know what joys and pains that other baby would have brought me, and I don't need to know. What I need to focus on is the pains and joys that my living son is bringing me today.